Unmaking Saskatchewan Harbinger Media Network

For better or for worse, Tommy Douglas is the figure most closely associated with Medicare in Canada. But long before the CCF was first elected in 1944, Saskatchewan people were organizing and strategizing to ensure their communities had access to doctors, nurses, hospitals, and infectious disease treatment. This episode looks at the evolution of public healthcare in the province between 1872 and 1944.

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Sources:
Boychuk, Gerard Explaining Public Health Insurance in the United States and Canada

Countess of Aberdeen What is the use of the Victorian Order of Nurses for Canada?

Daschuk, James Clearing the Plains

Houston, C. Stuart Steps on the road to medicare: why Saskatchewan led the way

Houston, C. Stuart Leading the way: A Matter of Life and Breath. The 75 Year History of the Saskatchewan Anti-Tuberculosis League and the Saskatchewan Lung Association

Middleton, F.C. Evolution of Tuberculosis Control in Saskatchewan

Ostry, Alec National History of Medicine: The Foundations of National Public Health Insurance

Rands, Stan Privilege and Policy: A History of Community Clinics in Saskatchewan

Shandel, Tom Bitter Medicine, Part One: The Birth of Medicare

Taylor, Malcom G. Health insurance and Canadian public policy: the seven decisions that created the Canadian health insurance system and their outcomes

Medicare is a project that was never finished. The failure to make it comprehensive left chinks that the right has exploited to push for ever more privatization. The crisis in the system right now is one that is by design, and until Canadians are willing to reckon with the fact that political leaders in the country don't believe in public healthcare as a value, we won't be able to fight back.

Links:

https://www.barrietoday.com/local-news/homeless-hopeless-man-to-seek-medically-assisted-death-6420855

https://theconversation.com/as-eligibility-for-maid-expands-the-ethical-implications-of-broad-access-to-medically-assisted-death-need-a-long-hard-look-198380

https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/toronto-woman-in-final-stages-of-maid-application-after-nearly-a-decade-long-search-for-housing-1.6145487

On November 29, 1990, the body of Neil Christopher Stonechild, a 17-year-old Saulteaux high school student, was found frozen in a field on the outskirts of Saskatoon. Despite his family's suspicions of foul play, less than a week after he was found, the Saskatoon Police closed the investigation into his death. It would take another 10 years - and two more freezing deaths - before Neil's death was properly investigated and it was revealed to the world what many Indigenous people in Saskatoon had known for years: the Saskatoon Police had a habit of driving Indigenous people far beyond the city limits and dumping them on the roadside to walk home, or die.

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Saskatchewan has a long history of incarcerating physically and intellectually disabled people. Megan Linton of Invisible Institutions comes on the show to talk about the history and present of disability confinement in the province.

Find Megan on Twitter at @invinstitutions and find Unmaking Saskatchewan on Patreon at patreon.com/unmakingsaskatchewan

Guest Julie Yu calls it "the story everyone knows, but no one knows anything about." Chinese restaurants are a small-town Saskatchewan staple, especially along the rail lines. But who are the people behind them and what was life like for the first Chinese restaurateurs who made their home on the prairies?

On July 17, 2022, Colby Tootoosis was attacked and beaten by settlers as he returned a trailer to a friend. The assault, which was caught on camera and happened not far from where settler farmer Gerald Stanley shot and killed Colten Boushie in August 2016, laid bare the juxtaposition between how colonial law is applied to Indigenous people and how it is applied to settlers. Sara talks with Colby’s brother, Mylan, about the assault and how it fits into the context of Indigenous-settler relations in Saskatchewan. Mylan is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Saskatchewan and can be found at the Radicle Narrative podcast: https://radiclenarrative.com/.

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