Medicare (Canada) - History

History

The first implementation of public hospital care in Canada came at the provincial level in Saskatchewan in 1946 and in Alberta in 1950, under provincial governments led by the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation and the Social credit party respectively. The first implementation of nationalized public health care -at the federal level- came about with the Hospital Insurance and Diagnostic Services act (HIDS), which was passed by the Liberal majority government of Louis St. Laurent in 1957, and was adopted by all provinces by 1961. Lester B. Pearson's government subsequently expanded this policy to universal health care with the Medical Care Act in 1966. Some have argued that these developments towards public national health care came as a result of the Saskatchewan government's health plan in 1961-1962 by Douglas and Woodrow Stanley Lloyd, who became premier of the province when Douglas resigned to become the leader of the new federal New Democratic Party, though the medicare legislation itself was actually drafted (and first proposed to parliament) by Allan MacEachen, a Liberal MP from Cape Breton.

Read more about this topic:  Medicare (Canada)

Famous quotes containing the word history:

    When the history of guilt is written, parents who refuse their children money will be right up there in the Top Ten.
    Erma Brombeck (20th century)

    There is one great fact, characteristic of this our nineteenth century, a fact which no party dares deny. On the one hand, there have started into life industrial and scientific forces which no epoch of former human history had ever suspected. On the other hand, there exist symptoms of decay, far surpassing the horrors recorded of the latter times of the Roman empire. In our days everything seems pregnant with its contrary.
    Karl Marx (1818–1883)

    Systematic philosophical and practical anti-intellectualism such as we are witnessing appears to be something truly novel in the history of human culture.
    Johan Huizinga (1872–1945)