Mater Sociomed. Please enable Cookies and reload the page. Although Douglas never led the party to government, through much of his tenure the party held the balance of power in the House of Commons. He was later elected in a by-election in the riding of Burnaby—Coquitlam, British Columbia. This page was last edited on 9 November 2020, at 04:14. Doctors there told his parents his leg would have to be amputated; however, a well-known orthopedic surgeon took interest and agreed to treat him for free if his parents allowed medical students to observe. [49], They took much grief for being the only parliamentarians to vote against it,[48] dropping to an approval rating of seven per cent in public opinion polls. [66] Internationally the former National Labor College in Silver Spring, Maryland, was renamed the Tommy Douglas Center after its purchase by the Amalgamated Transit Union in 2014. [41] Douglas, after much consultation with Coldwell, Lewis, and his caucus, decided in June 1961 to reluctantly contest the leadership of the New Party. Another Saskatchewan politician, newly elected Prime Minister John Diefenbaker, decreed in 1958 that any province seeking to introduce a hospital plan would receive 50 cents on the dollar from the federal government. Thus, respectable momentum was given to the idea that finally came to fruition, on 17 April 1982, with the proclamation of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.[33]. The doctors believed their best interests were not being met and feared a significant loss of income as well as government interference in medical care decisions even though Douglas agreed that his government would pay the going rate for service that doctors charged. [48] The act, enacted previously only for wartime purposes, imposed extreme limitations on civil liberties, and gave the police and military vastly expanded powers for arresting and detaining suspects, usually with little to no evidence required. [41] He handily defeated Argue on 3 August 1961 at the first NDP leadership convention in Ottawa, and became the new party's first leader. In 1966, the Liberal minority government of Lester B. Pearson created such a program, with the federal government paying 50% of the costs and the provinces the other half. In the 1800s there were large epidemics of cholera in Europe and America that killed thousands of people. He was re-elected in the riding of Nanaimo–Cowichan–The Islands in the 1972 and 1974 elections. After several operations, Douglas's leg was saved. Around the same time as the leadership convention held to replace him, he asked the party not to buy him an elaborate parting gift. During the 1968 Federal Election, Douglas described homosexuality by saying "its a mental illness its a psychiatric condition" and that it should be treated by psychiatrists and social workers. [7], In 1930, Douglas married Irma Dempsey, a music student at Brandon College. Strayer, Barry L. "Patriation of the Constitution and the Charter: 25 years after", The Timlin Lecture, 20 February 2007, University of Saskatchewan, p. 14.