Former NDP leader Tommy Douglas. Photo by T.C. Douglas/Library and Archives Canada.

The following is a digitized version of an article from Canadian Dimension’s print archive, which is available through the University of Manitoba Digital Collections. It was first published in the April 1971 edition of CD (Volume 7, Number 8). To preserve these articles as they originally appeared, we do not alter, edit or update them.

This interview, conducted by Steven Langdon, features Tommy Douglas reflecting on the roots of his democratic socialism, the achievements of his government in Saskatchewan, and the challenges facing the NDP at the start of the 1970s. Speaking at a moment of rising debate within the party, Douglas outlines his pragmatic approach to public ownership and cooperatives, while offering candid views on the party’s future direction and internal tensions. Langdon, then a young academic and activist, would later go on to serve as a New Democratic Party Member of Parliament and leadership contender, before returning to a career in economics and public policy.

Steven Langdon (SL): The first thing that I want to ask you, because this is a commemorative issue, is what your own background was that led you to socialism.

Tommy Douglas (TD): Well, I suppose basically my background was socialist to begin with. My father had been a member of the British Labour Party. He was a soldier in the South African War. The family had been traditionally Liberal. When my father joined the Labour Party, after he returned from the war, my grandfather ordered him out of the house; and it was a long time before they were reconciled. There were eight boys and a daughter in the family—and one by one the boys joined the Labour Party. And when I was about 14 years of age, my grandfather finally joined the Labour Party. Then when we lived in Winnipeg, of course, my father was a supporter of J.S. Woodsworth, who was our MP.

So my background was socialist and I went to a lot of meetings with Beatrice Brigden and the group in the Independent Labour Party in Winnipeg. During the 1919 strike I used to go to outdoor meetings addressed by people like Fred Dixon, S.J. Farmer, John Queen, A.A. Heaps, and so on. But I had not engaged in any great political activity during the years after I left Winnipeg. I went to Brandon College. I was there six years.

I think I first began to think in political terms when I was down in Chicago University. My work was in sociology and I had a lot of contact with the unemployed and underprivileged in the south end of Chicago. I began to realize that in the United States the situation called for very fundamental changes. That was in 1931. Norman Thomas came to the university. He was running as the socialist candidate for the presidency of the US. And then I came back to Weyburn. I began to organize the unemployed and organize the farm group, and it was in an endeavour to bring these two together that I came into contact with M.J. Coldwell, who was the head of the Independent Labour Party, and with George Williams, head of the United Farmers Group.

SL: This was in 1931?

TD: Yes, in ‘31. It was in ‘32 that we managed to bring about a merger of these two groups into the Farmer Labour Party. And we also laid the foundation at that time for forming a national group on the same basis. And, as you know, in the early fall of 1932 we advocated an organization in Calgary which led to the convention in Regina in 1933 which formed the CCF. So I came into the socialist movement actively, though my roots had always been in it, as a result of the appalling conditions of the ’30s. And I didn’t go into it with ideas of making a political career of it, even when I was asked to run—as I did in 1934—for the Farmer Labour Party. I did so merely because there were so few people who could run on the Prairies. Most people were on relief or if they had a job, they were fearful of losing it, and consequently only people with some measure of independence could run. I was defeated in that election and I had no intention of running in the federal campaign. I was planning to go back to Chicago and finish up mp Ph.D.

SL: With the intention of going into academics?

TD: Yes, with the intention of going into academic work; and I had a tentative offer to do some teaching at Chicago. So in ‘35 we were in the same position. It was difficult to get anybody to run. And when Mr. Coldwell and I were both elected in ‘35, I was thinking even then in terms of putting in one term in Parliament and going back to the university. Then I got elected as the provincial leader in Saskatchewan, so good-bye academics.

But if I were trying to sum it up, I would say I came into the socialist movement partly because of my background, but mainly because of the appalling conditions—very apparent injustice and inequities and repression of a capitalist society, which forced me to go back again and begin to study more realistically the whole political structure. I was convinced that a democratic socialist movement in Canada was essential if Canada was going to become a civilized society.

SL: You mentioned Norman Thomas and some of the people in Winnipeg—Woodsworth. Were there other socialist influences which might have shaped what kind of socialist you have become?

TD: Well, I did a good deal of studying of Marx and recognized the validity of his analysis of the society. I couldn’t accept the solutions that he offered. My feeling was that the democratic process has an important part to play, first in securing power and secondly in the kind of society you would set up. I’ve never envisaged transferring from the tyranny of a capitalist oligarchy to the tyranny of a bureaucratic state. I’ve always thought in terms of a kind of society in which the state would—on a federal, provincial or municipal level—own and control the major activities that were essential to economic planning. But there would have to be an important place for cooperatives—producer cooperatives or consumer cooperatives; for some participation by workers themselves, either in the ownership or management or both. What socialism has always meant to me is social ownership: the people themselves controlling their own social and economic destiny. And I don’t equate this entirely with government ownership.

I think there is a very important place for........

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