Michael Therriault: Tommy Douglas

Quotes 

• Jimmie Gardiner : Why don't you join me?

  Tommy Douglas : No, I have my own table, thank you very much.

  Jimmie Gardiner : Yeah. Bit of a difference between your table and mine, isn't there? People notice these things, you know.

  Tommy Douglas : People notice I don't need a private room to eat my supper. That is, uh, that's fine by me.

  Jimmie Gardiner : That's not what they notice. They notice that you may be premier, but this is still my table, in my restaurant, in my town, in my province. You've only got it on loan.

  Tommy Douglas : We all get it on loan, Jimmie. That is the concept of democracy.

  Jimmie Gardiner : No, sir. The concept of democracy is that business goes on as usual, regardless of who gets elected. You could call yourself a socialist, Reverend, but this is a capitalist country, and the capitalists aren't going to stand for it.

  Tommy Douglas : Well, the capitalists lost this time. Enjoy your table.

• Tommy Douglas : This is a blatant political attack on the finances of my province.

  Mackenzie King : No, Tommy, it's a personal attack, on you and your little bunch of communists. Now stop being outraged, and defend yourself. You're the premier of Saskatchewan, man. You can't come crying to me like some freshman backbencher. Now you go to the minister of agriculture and you make a deal, just like every other premier does. Now that's all I want to hear about it. I'll see you tomorrow for dinner.

• Tommy Douglas : I have always felt that medical care is so important that it ought not have a price tag attached to it. Medicine, like education, should be available to all. That is why, for the past fifteen years, we in the government have worked towards the day when we could announce that we would pay all the medical bills in this province.

• Tommy Douglas : Let me tell you the position of the government of Saskatchewan. We are going to hold an election, and we are going to propose the very same legislation that you fellas find so objectionable, and when we win, we are going to make that law, and you fellas are going to obey that law.

• Tommy Douglas : As you know, we have promised that if reelected, this government will introduce Universal Medicare for every person in Saskatchewan, and our opponents are calling us a bunch of communists, and the doctors are saying it will mean the end of the world as we know it. Well, I say, you've heard that kind of nonsense before, and you know how seriously to take it. I've been in office for some time now, and the sky hasn't fallen yet.

• Irma Douglas : The least you can do is be polite enough to think it over. It's not everyone who gets asked to run for prime minister.

  Tommy Douglas : I'll never see a CCF government in Ottawa in my lifetime.

  Irma Douglas : Well, what does it matter, as long as the right laws get passed?

• Woodrow Lloyd : Why do we have to fight by the rules, and they don't?

  Tommy Douglas : Because the rules are what we're fighting for.

• Tommy Douglas : I would like to congratulate my opponent on a victory won fair and square. The voters of Regina have spoken, and I have heard them. But an election is simply one battle in the great war against injustice, and inequality, and exploitation. So to all of our candidates across the country, those who, like myself, were not successful, may I remind you of an old verse of a Scottish ballad that says: Fight on, my men, said Sir Andrew Barton. I am hurt, but I am not slain. I'll lie me down and bleed awhile, but then I'll rise, and fight again.

• Tommy Douglas : Fifty years ago tonight, the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation was founded, right here in Regina. I think back to that first convention, and the dreams that we had. The programs, the programs we envisioned were so radical, why, we laughed at them ourselves. Why we, why we, actually had the gall to imagine a society, a country, with free education, free medical care, old age pensions, unemployment insurance, a bill of rights, a real constitution. Well, now, you name it. It was sheer madness to think we'd achieve any of it, but fifty years later, here we are.

• Tommy Douglas : The fact is, a government-administered plan is far more efficient than any private plan on the planet, because, because in a free enterprise system, in a free enterprise system, there has always got to be a profit, just as I've always said. In fact, that profit has to grow always, every year, or the stockholders will rebel, and heaven forbid we save a few lives at the expense of the stockholders. Medicine, medicine is a universal need, and it must be universally provided. A society, that's right, a society that can't see that, isn't much of a society at all.

• Tommy Douglas : It's very slow growing. I'm sure something else will kill me before the cancer does.

  Irma Douglas : Ever the optimist.