> It would be hard to argue that the cdn bourgeoisie was weak.
Comment: Not in relative terms - compared to the American bourgeoisie and,
earlier,
the British.
==============================
>More importantly however health care is a provincial responsibility and
>provincial elites including the doctors wanted nothing to do with universal
>health care.
Comment: A provincial responsibility, but jointly funded by the feds. The elites were divided, as they have always been between a liberal and conservative wing disputing the matter of state intervention in the economy. The more directly self-interested doctors savagely fought medicare in Saskatchewan where it was first introduced by Tommy Douglas' CCF government, but overt time their opposition softened, especially those with a large working class patient base, when they realized it represented a government guarantee their bills would be paid.
===============================
>When socialists were elected in Sask they were faced with massive
>opposition from the capitalist class and the petite bourgeoisie. Had it
>not been for those god damned determined socialists in Saskatchewan health
>care would have never hit the national agenda. And when they (CCF) did
>bring it in they were faced with a massive doctors strike and they had to
>bring doctors in from all over the empire to break the doctors strike.
>Eventually the feds got into the game when (a) they saw how popular it was
>(b) and how popular it was making the socialists (CCF/NDP). So the key
>here is not the relative strength or weakness of the bourgeoisie but the
>dialectic of region, class, electoral politics and timing.
Comment: All true, but as noted above, mass pressure for reform is only one
part of the equation. The other part is that social reforms also have to be
consistent with capitalist interests if they're to have any chance of being
accepted peacefully within the framework of the electoral system. The
dominant liberal wing of the capitalist class everywhere favoured raising
the health and education standards of the masses to improve productivity. I
focused on this dimension of the health care reform to illustrate that,
unlike in the US until recently, the Canadian bourgeoisie could not afford
to provide health coverage for its workers, and relied on state
intervention.
====================================
>> Otherwise, the Canadian labour movement resembled that of the US, sans
>> the corrosive effect of racism and imperialism.
>
> This is over simplified. The cdn labour movement was perhaps equally
> racist.
Comment: I don't want to minimize that Canada has a history of racism towards the indigenous population and blacks who came north from the US and the West Indies, and that racism has grown with increased immigration, as it has in Europe. But you ignore the central place racism has had in US history from slavery if you suggest it did not differ in degree from that in Canada, including with respect to the labour movements in both countries.