Now, documents obtained through an access to information request show that in the 1960s, activists in the province who were in favor of the idea of medical care were being watched by the RCMP, amid fears they might be communist sympathizers. The Saskatchewan Health Care Insurance Act came into effect on July 1, 1962. Years later, it would become the model for the nation’s universal health care. However, documents obtained by Dennis Gruending, a former CBC journalist and member of parliament who is now an Ottawa-based writer, show that the RCMP considered the bill’s supporters to be communists. “The RCMP were very fixated on what they saw as a threat from communism,” Gruending told Shauna Powers, host of CBC’s Weekend in Saskatchewan, in an interview Saturday. The surveillance took place during the Cold War, when tensions were high, he noted — and many people were under suspicion. “The RCMP throughout that period was spying on members of the Communist Party, but the police also cast a much wider net to basically spy very well on anyone with progressive leanings. “So the RCMP chose in 1962 to confuse support for medical care with support for the Communist Party.” In 1962, the RCMP opened a dossier on supporters of the Saskatchewan bill, calling it the “Saskatchewan Medicare Plan – Communist Activities Within,” documents obtained by Gruending say. The RCMP monitored local and international doctors, according to the records. LISTEN | Dennis Gruending on his discoveries from an access to information request: Saskatchewan Weekend12:3560 Years of Medicare in Saskatchewan This month marks the 60th anniversary of Medicare in Saskatchewan. But it wasn’t smooth sailing in the early days. In fact, the RCMP were spying on the doctors trying to make it work. Dennis Gruending has explored this story and joins host Shauna Powers to share some of what he found. Gruending said that includes people who traveled from Britain to fill gaps left by doctors who left in response to the introduction of the bill, as well as local doctors who set up clinics with people who supported the bill. Sally Mahood’s parents – Edgar and Margaret Mahood – were among those local doctors. Sally Mahood, now a doctor in Saskatchewan, described her parents as supporters and activists of progressive ideas at the time. She remembers the time marked by a major social struggle in the province, with the organized medical profession opposing medical care and others – like her parents – fighting to support it. Her mother was one of two doctors not on strike in Saskatoon. “It was a very tense time in the country,” he said, adding that he “has memories of my father having to ride shotgun with my mother when he went out on house calls.” Mahood said while some may find the RCMP surveillance surprising, she is not shocked. While her parents might not know, she doesn’t think they’ll be surprised either. KTK ARCHIVES | Sask. doctors walk off the job to protest universal health plan:
The 1962 Saskatchewan Doctors’ Strike
Saskatchewan doctors walk off the job to protest the province’s universal health care system. Mahood said she hopes people learn from the recent revelations and think about who the police might be monitoring now and what social values those people might be fighting for, such as race issues. “What upsets me is that there is no accountability for the RCMP to justify why they go after ordinary citizens, who are members of legitimate political parties doing legitimate political activism, and they never have to be held accountable for that behavior,” he said. After sifting through the more than 200 documents, Gruending came away thinking “the RCMP was out of control at that point. They went too far.” “There’s an irony here too — the RCMP thought they were protecting democracy, but when I look at the documents and compare [them] about what happened, I just don’t see it that way,” he said. “The introduction of medical care was actually a textbook case of democracy.” Tommy Douglas, Saskatchewan’s premier at the time, had promoted his plan for medicare during the election, explained Gruending, who wrote a book about introducing medicare. Douglas won that election and the bill was then debated in the legislature before passing. “So I don’t know how the RCMP could believe they were protecting democracy by spying on people who promote medical care,” Gruending said.
