What would our Tommy think of the Medicine Chest Clause?

I was going through old pictures

and I found these two

taken in 2013

over three years ago

when Moira and I sat in emergency

at the General hospital

thankful for our medical system,

for Tommy Douglas and universal health care.

 

 

 

Today I am mindful

that in 1876

visionary Indigenous leaders

negotiated hard to include

the Treaty Six medicine chest clause

conceptualizing universal health care as a Treaty right.

 

I wonder what our Tommy would think

of the Medicine Chest clause

or if he realized that universal health care

had already been made sacred

when the pipes were raised

and if we had accepted the gifts

of sharing this land as brothers, as sisters

our peoples' healthcare would have been

one hundred years ahead.

 

I wonder today what other sacred concepts

sacred gifts, sacred ways of being, sacred relationships

we are trying to re-create

which those visionaries of old

already set in place for us.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Note. On Father's Day, 2016, we met for supper

in Weyburn, Treaty Four Territory.

 

Moira, Victoria, and Tyler drove up from the farm at Macoun.

Arwen, Michael and I drove from Fort Qu'Appelle.

 

Afterwards, we had a little family photo shoot with TC Douglas

who is not only the Greatest Canadian, he is also Weyburn's most famous son,

(not to mention Keifer Sutherland's Grandfather, but that's a story for someone else's blog.)

 

http://www.canadashistory.ca/Magazine/Online-Exclusive/Articles/History-Idol--Tommy-Douglas.aspx

 

 

 

Note. When I say "our Tommy" I do this with great pride.

Grandpa and Grandma Bailey called him by  name.

Grandpa Bailey ran for the newly morphed NDP in Assiniboine

in that fear-crazed spring before the July Saskatchewan Doctors' Strike,

protesting the implementation of the "Saskatchewan Medical Care Bill".

 

http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/saskatchewan-doctors-strike/

 

 

1962 G.E. – June 18

 

Hazen Robert Argue ......................................................................................... Lib 7739

Lawrence Watson ............................................................................................. PC 7386

Cecil T. Bailey ................................................................................................... NDP 5153

Daryl David Rumble .......................................................................................... SC 1009

http://www.saskarchives.com/sites/default/files/documents/Federal-Elec-Results-by-Elec-Dist-Sask.pdf

 

 

 

 

Here's Tommy and my Moira,

back to where this blog post began.

 

I do wonder what our Tommy would think of the Medicine Chest Clause?

 

http://esask.uregina.ca/entry/treaty_6.html