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At the founding convention of the New Democratic Party, Thomas Clement Douglas was chosen as its leader. Douglas had led the government of Saskatchewan, the first socialist government elected in North America.
Douglas's working-class and religious family provided a strong background for both his politics and his faith. His family left Scotland and settled in Winnipeg in 1919 where Douglas witnessed the Winnipeg General Strike that year. Leaving school at the age of 14, Douglas began a printer's apprenticeship, then became involved in church work and in 1924 decided to enter the ministry. He was at Brandon College for six years and it was there that he was exposed to the Social Gospel.
When Douglas moved to Weyburn, Saskatchewan, following his ordination in 1930, he found much suffering caused by the depression and drought. Douglas soon became involved in ministering to people's physical as well as spiritual needs. His studies, along with his experience of the Depression of the 1930s, led him to conclude that political action was necessary to alleviate human suffering.
In 1931 he helped form a local association of the Independent Labour Party, and two years later he attended the founding convention of the new Co-operative Commonwealth Federation. Douglas ran unsuccessfully in the 1934 Saskatchewan election. Friends then convinced him that he should be a CCF candidate in the federal election of 1935. This time he was successful.
The Second World War further convinced Douglas that the socialist case was valid. Although he heard it repeatedly argued that money could not be found to put people to work during the Depression, money was found to finance a war.
During his first two terms in Parliament, Douglas earned a reputation as a skillful and witty debater. He claimed as his constituency the underprivileged and exploited and he often took unpopular stands in defence of civil liberties, including opposition to the internment of Japanese-Canadians.
In 1944 Douglas resigned his federal seat to lead the Saskatchewan provincial party in the successful general election campaign.
As Premier of the province for the next 17 years, he became a symbol of what the democratic socialist alternative promised. His government was innovative and efficient and it pioneered many programs that would later be implemented by others, notably in the field of social services.
Douglas became leader of the new party in 1961 primarily because of his success in Saskatchewan but also because he was universally regarded as the left's most eloquent spokesman. He was able to inspire and motivate Party workers and he could also explain democratic socialism in moral, ethical and religious terms.
However, Douglas was defeated in the federal election of 1962, largely because of the backlash against the Saskatchewan government's introduction of Medicare, which had culminated in a long and bitter strike by the province's doctors.
Winning a British Columbia seat in a by-election, Douglas went on to serve as leader of the New Democratic Party until 1971, when he became his Party's energy critic until his retirement in 1979. He died in Ottawa on February 24, 1986.
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