Tommy Douglas
Scottish-born Canadian politician (1904-1986)
Thomas Clement Douglas (20 October 1904 – 24 February 1986) was a Scottish-born Canadian politician who served as the seventh premier of Saskatchewan from 1944 to 1961 and leader of the New Democratic Party from 1961 to 1971. A Baptist minister, he was elected to the House of Commons of Canada in 1935 as a member of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF). He left federal politics to become leader of the Saskatchewan Co-operative Commonwealth Federation and then the seventh Premier of Saskatchewan. His government introduced the continent's first single-payer, universal health care program.
After setting up Saskatchewan's universal healthcare program, Douglas stepped down and ran to lead the newly formed federal New Democratic Party (NDP), the successor party of the national CCF. He was elected as its first federal leader in 1961. 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 noted as being the main opposition to the imposition of the War Measures Act during the 1970 October Crisis. He resigned as leader the next year but remained as a Member of Parliament until 1979.
Douglas was awarded many honorary degrees, and a foundation was named for him and his political mentor M. J. Coldwell in 1971. In 1981, he was invested into the Order of Canada, and he became a member of Canada's privy council in 1984, two years before his death.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Tommy Douglas” is scottish-born Canadian politician (1904-1986). The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Tommy, Douglas and Scottish-born, not as a finished interpretation.
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The phrase “scottish-born Canadian politician (1904-1986)” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 15, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q359653. VIAF identifies the subject as 255149066345565600206. The Library of Congress control number is n83068615. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1904, 1986, 1944 and 1961.
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This entry incorporates text from “Tommy Douglas” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.