Health-care system in Canada

Although health care is an area of provincial responsibility, the federal Liberal Party had promised a health-care program in their platform of 1919, had dangled it before the electorate in 1945, and had made it part of the platform in 1963. The successful but very difficult creation of such a program in Saskatchewan by its socialist government in 1961 had set a standard that Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson knew the Liberals must match, especially since the Saskatchewan premier, Tommy Douglas, had become leader of the federal New Democratic Party that year. Pearson did little to shape the Canadian medicare program, but he did challenge the reluctant provinces, notably Ontario, to accept that Canadians must have equal access to state-provided medical services. Parliament passed the Medical Care Act in 1966 but financial exigencies postponed its operation for a year. The effect of this social legislation was to make Canada more European and less American in its approach to social welfare.