Part III: Oral History and the Birth of Medicare: Witnesses to Medicare in Saskatchewan: Medicare Workshop at the University of Saskatchewan—Wednesday, 20 May 2007: The Struggle to Implement Medicare

Allan Blakeney reminisces on the public relations battle launched by the Saskatchewan College of Physicians and Surgeons, and fuelled by most local media, when the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) government passed legislation in 1961 to deliver on their election promise of a province-wide single-payer medical care insurance plan, the provincial forerunner of Medicare in Canada. Blakeney details the major events leading to the doctors’ strike and recalls the role of some major players on both sides of the conflict. Blakeney highlights strategies conceived by the CCF to cope with the potential and realized eventualities of the doctors’ strike.