RCMP spied on activists in early days of universal medicare planning in Sask., documents show
CBC
Nearly 60 years ago to the day, Saskatchewan doctors went on strike in protest against what would become Canada's universal health care system.
Now, documents obtained through an access to information request show that in the 1960s, activists in the province in favour of the idea that would become medicare were being surveilled by RCMP, amid fears they may be communist sympathizers.
The Saskatchewan Medical Care Insurance Act came into force on July 1, 1962. Years later, it would become the template for the nation's universal health care.
But documents obtained by Dennis Gruending, a former CBC journalist and member of Parliament who is now an Ottawa-based author, show the RCMP considered the bill's supporters communists.
"The RCMP was very fixated upon what it considered to be a threat from communism," Gruending told Shauna Powers, host of CBC's Saskatchewan Weekend, in an interview Saturday.
The surveillance happened during the Cold War, when tensions were high, he noted — and many people were under suspicion.
"The RCMP throughout that time spied on members of the Communist Party, but the police also cast a much wider net to basically spy on pretty well anybody with progressive tendencies.
"So the RCMP chose in 1962 to confuse support for medicare with support for the Communist Party."
In 1962, the RCMP opened a file into the supporters of the Saskatchewan bill, calling it "Medicare Plan Saskatchewan — Communist Activities Within," the documents Gruending obtained say.
RCMP kept tabs on local and international doctors, according to the files.
LISTEN | Dennis Gruending on his discoveries from an access to information request:
Gruending said that included people who travelled from Britain to fill the gaps left by doctors who walked out in response to the introduction of the bill, as well as local doctors establishing clinics with people who supported the bill.
Sally Mahood's parents — Edgar and Margaret Mahood — were among those local doctors.
Sally Mahood, now a doctor in Saskatchewan herself, described her parents as advocates and activists for progressive ideas at that time.