Mr. Speaker, tonight the Canadian Medical Association will induct Tommy Douglas into its hall of fame. Tommy would be pleased to see how much things have changed since the doctors' strike in Saskatchewan, how the medical community itself appreciates the virtues of publicly funded health insurance and how they are, along with others, trying to save it from death by underfunding.
But Tommy would also want us to note that medicare still has its enemies, both seen and unseen: seen in the form of the Reform Party which openly advocates an American two-tier system, and unseen, or at least hiding, in the form of the federal Liberal government which has knowingly created the conditions that may allow the enemies of medicare to succeed.
Tommy's warning in his final years about medicare was “Don't let them take it away.” The NDP urges all Canadians to heed his warning and keep an eye on the Reformers and the Liberals.