RCMP spied on activists in early days of universal medicare planning in Sask., documents show

Almost 60 years in the past to the day, Saskatchewan medical doctors went on strike in protest towards what would turn into Canada’s common well being care system.
Now, paperwork obtained via an entry to data request present that within the Nineteen Sixties, activists within the province in favour of the concept would turn into medicare had been being surveilled by RCMP, amid fears they could be communist sympathizers.
The Saskatchewan Medical Care Insurance coverage Act got here into power on July 1, 1962. Years later, it could turn into the template for the nation’s common well being care.
However paperwork obtained by Dennis Gruending, a former CBC journalist and member of Parliament who’s now an Ottawa-based creator, present the RCMP thought of the invoice’s supporters communists.
“The RCMP was very fixated upon what it thought of to be a risk from communism,” Gruending informed Shauna Powers, host of CBC’s Saskatchewan Weekend, in an interview Saturday.
The surveillance occurred throughout the Chilly Warfare, when tensions had been excessive, he famous — and many individuals had been beneath suspicion.
“The RCMP all through that point spied on members of the Communist Occasion, however the police additionally forged a a lot wider web to mainly spy on fairly properly anyone with progressive tendencies.
“So the RCMP selected in 1962 to confuse help for medicare with help for the Communist Occasion.”
In 1962, the RCMP opened a file into the supporters of the Saskatchewan invoice, calling it “Medicare Plan Saskatchewan — Communist Actions Inside,” the paperwork Gruending obtained say.
RCMP saved tabs on native and worldwide medical doctors, in keeping with the recordsdata.
LISTEN | Dennis Gruending on his discoveries from an entry to data request:
Saskatchewan Weekend12:3560 Years of Medicare in Saskatchewan
This month marks the sixtieth anniversary of Medicare in Saskatchewan. Nevertheless it wasn’t clean crusing within the early days. Actually, the RCMP spied on the medical doctors who had been striving to make it work. Dennis Gruending has been exploring this historical past, and he joins host Shauna Powers to share a few of what he discovered.
Gruending stated that included individuals who travelled from Britain to fill the gaps left by medical doctors who walked out in response to the introduction of the invoice, in addition to native medical doctors establishing clinics with individuals who supported the invoice.
Sally Mahood’s mother and father — Edgar and Margaret Mahood — had been amongst these native medical doctors.
Sally Mahood, now a physician in Saskatchewan herself, described her mother and father as advocates and activists for progressive concepts at the moment.
She remembers the time as one marked by an necessary social wrestle within the province, with the organized medical career against medicare, and others — like her mother and father — combating in help of it.
Her mom was one of many two physicians who did not go on strike in Saskatoon.
“It was a really tense time within the province,” she stated, including she has “recollections of my dad having to journey shotgun with my mom when she would exit on home calls.”
Mahood stated whereas some may discover the RCMP’s surveillance stunning, it would not come as a shock to her.
Whereas her mother and father could not have identified about it, she would not imagine they’d be shocked both.
CBC ARCHIVES | Sask. medical doctors stroll off the job to protest the common well being plan:
Saskatchewan’s medical doctors stroll off the job to protest the province’s common well being scheme.
Mahood stated she hopes that folks study from the latest revelations, and take into consideration who police might need beneath surveillance now and what social values these folks could also be combating for, like racial points.
“What distresses me is that there isn’t any accountability for the RCMP to justify why they’re following abnormal residents, who’re members of authentic political events doing authentic political activism, and so they by no means should reply for this behaviour,” she stated.
After sifting via the greater than 200 paperwork, Gruending got here away considering “the RCMP was uncontrolled on the time. It went approach too far.”
“There’s an irony right here as properly — the RCMP thought it was defending democracy, however once I have a look at the paperwork and evaluate [them] to what occurred, I simply do not see it that approach,” he stated.
“The introduction of medicare was truly a textbook case in democracy.”
Tommy Douglas, Saskatchewan’s premier on the time, had been selling his plan for medicare throughout the election, defined Gruending, who wrote a book on the introduction of medicare.
Douglas gained that election, and the invoice was then debated within the legislature earlier than it handed.
“So I do not know the way the RCMP may have believed they had been defending democracy by spying on folks selling medicare,” stated Gruending.