In 1944, the people of Saskatchewan elected the first socialist government in North America. Dream No Little Dreams tells the story of that government, led by Tommy Douglas and the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation (CCF), which later became the New Democratic Party (NDP). The book is both a history of the CCF and a look at how the government worked from the inside. A.W. Johnson, who was a senior public servant during most of Douglas’s time in office, explains the government’s main goal: to change the role of the state. He shows how they worked toward this goal over 17 years.
Johnson looks at where the CCF came from, its roots in Saskatchewan’s history and prairie politics, and what it believed in as it got ready to lead. He talks about the programs the government created, how it changed the way government worked, and how it built a skilled and professional public service.
One of the government’s biggest achievements was Medicare. The book gives a close look at how Medicare was planned and the long battle with doctors who resisted it. Johnson also explains how the government planned to pay for its many ideas, linking that to changes in national policies and financial agreements between the federal and provincial governments from the 1940s to the 1960s.
