The Saskatchewan Legislature had a rare achievement on Thursday, as the House of MLAs unanimously supported an Opposition motion asking for the release of secret documents on former Premier Tommy Douglas, with the motion now to be sent to the federal
The Saskatchewan Legislature had a rare achievement on Thursday, as the House of MLAs unanimously supported an Opposition motion asking for the release of secret documents on former Premier Tommy Douglas, with the motion now to be sent to the federal government.The motion had the support of Douglass family, as Shirley Douglas said in a statement, My father would be very moved by the passage of this important motion today.Douglas, proclaimed in a national vote as the Greatest Canadian, is widely known as the father of Medicare for introducing public health care in Saskatchewan and subsequently pushing to have it adopted nation-wide. As the premier, he also introduced the first Bill of Rights in Canada, preceding the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights by a year and a half.Douglas came to Weyburn in 1930 as the pastor of Calvary Baptist Church, and subsequently began his political career here, during which he served as premier from 1944 to 1961, and was the federal NDP leader from 1961 to 1971. During this period, he was under surveillance by the RCMP, and those files were later turned over to CSIS (Canadian Security and Intelligence Service).A request has been made for the files since 2005 by the Canadian Press, and since then others have called for the files to be made public; CSIS released some details, but has refused making all the documents public, citing national security as the reason.The NDP, which made the motion initially, said that valuable historical lessons could be learned about the late leader if they were released in their entirety.Tommys daughter Shirley believes revealing the full file is a chance to learn from our shared history, said NDP leader Dwain Lingenfelter.
