The Scot voted the greatest-ever Canadian but forgotten in his homeland
Actor Donald Sutherland was rightly eulogised, with much made of his Scottish roots. There was understandably considerable reference to his famous son, Hollywood star Kiefer Sutherland.
But little was said, if anything in most obituaries, about his father-in-law who, unlike Sutherland, was actually born in Scotland and is arguably even more famous in Canada where his legacy remains, forming part of a perceived Canadian identity.
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Hide AdDonald Sutherland, who was proud of his Scottish heritage, married Shirley, the daughter of Tommy Douglas, who was born in Falkirk in 1904 and emigrated with his parents to Canada in 1910, although he returned to Glasgow during the First World War and spending his early teenage years there.


Other than some reference at the Falkirk Wheel, little’s made of this famous Scottish Bairn despite his achievements and the veneration for him in his adopted land where he died in 1986 still speaking with a Stirlingshire brogue. In his new homeland, he’s “the Great Tommy Douglas” and in 2004 he was voted the greatest-ever Canadian.
Morality not Marxism
When Douglas returned with his parents to Canada, they settled in Winnipeg. Two factors were to shape the great man. A childhood injury which nearly saw him lose a leg resulted in him becoming convinced of the need for healthcare for all. Only the willingness of an eminent orthopaedic surgeon to treat him for free, so long as students could watch, saved the limb. Added to that, in 1918, he witnessed police brutality in Winnipeg during a general strike in the city which included the shooting of a worker.
Those events moulded the man. Initially though his vocation was the ministry, becoming a Baptist pastor. But soon his path became political. Like many including his Scottish peers on Red Clydeside, his socialism was driven more by morality than the Marxism-Leninism of the contemporary Soviet Union.
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Hide AdHaving moved to the neighbouring province of Saskatchewan, he finally made the change from pulpit to politics. He joined the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation Party (CCF), an early political iteration marrying agricultural and industrial workers’ interests. Elected to the Canadian parliament in 1935, a decade later he was premier of Saskatchewan, becoming the first ever social democrat elected to high office in not just Canada but North America.
Collective pride
It was there that he made his mark. As in the UK, radicalism was to the fore but most fundamental was his establishment of Medicare. The suffering and trauma he’d endured as a child was to be ended for future generations. His scheme would develop into the system that exists today and which is almost seen as part of Canadian identity, differentiating them from their American cousins south of the 49th parallel. It’s a matter of collective pride and Douglas was the architect of that along with other radical innovations until he stood down as Saskatchewan premier in 1961.
As in post-war Britain, political attitudes changed and CCF were trounced in the 1958 Canadian federal elections. Changing its name to what’s now the New Democratic Party, Douglas returned to Ottawa to shore up the cause. He was party leader until 1971 representing a constituency in British Columbia until 1979. Dying in 1986, he’s largely forgotten in his native land but revered in his adopted one.
Kenny MacAskill is the Alba party candidate for Alloa and Grangemouth
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