Backstage Manager, perhaps to clarify my statement for you, I should have said that the mood of a large chunk of Canadian voters"in the fifties and early sixties" had turned decidedly left, into the arms of the CCF, and that was scary to the powers that be.

Public Hospital Insurance was first introduced in Saskatchewan in 1947 by Tommy Douglas and the CCF (the first socialist government in North America). Douglas and the CCF further extended it and passed it into law in 1961, as a universal medicare plan to cover doctors services as well.

However, like it or not, universal medicare for the rest of Canada came into law under Lester B. Pearson's minority government in 1966, with the passage of the Medical Care Act, with no provision to opt out. Tommy Douglas was then running federally under the banner of the NDP, hence my reference CCF/NDP. It did take about 5 years for all the provinces and territories to sign on.

Although Trudeau did some tweaking and introduced other socially progressive programmes, to again appease the left, and although he might be considered the first Prime Minister to finger his constituents, refer to his backbenchers "trained seals" and suspend civil liberties, he was not the Father of Medicare in Canada.

Some history of Healthcare in Canada

some more history of Healthcare in Canada

and some more history of health care in Canada