Extraordinary Canadians: Tommy Douglas Paperback by Vincent Lam

Product Details

• Publisher: Penguin Canada (2013-09-03)
• Language: English
• Paperback: 256 pages
• ISBN-13: 9780143169178
• Item Weight: 209.79 grams
• Dimensions: 7.7 x 5.0 x 0.7 cm

Tommy Douglas was a Scottish-born prairie politician who believed in the enormous potential of co-operative action for the common good. Award-winning novelist and medical doctor Vincent Lam brings special insight to his portrait of Douglas, who grew up to become a champion boxer and a Baptist minister and then later exchanged the pulpit for a political platform. A powerful orator and tireless activist, he served for seventeen years as premier of Saskatchewan, where he introduced the universal health care program that would eventually be adopted across Canada. As the new leader of the New Democratic Party, he was a staunch advocate of programs aimed at improving the well-being of ordinary Canadians and a steadfast defender of civil liberties. By his example and unflagging efforts, Douglas made democratic socialism a part of mainstream Canadian political life.

About the Author

VINCENT LAM is from the expatriate Chinese community of Vietnam. Trained in Toronto, he was an emergency physician for thirteen years. He is now an addictions medicine physician, the Medical Director of the Coderix Medical Clinic, and a lecturer at the University of Toronto. Lam’s debut, a collection of short stories called Bloodletting & Miraculous Cures, won the 2006 Scotiabank Giller Prize. His bestselling novel, The Headmaster’s Wager, was a finalist for the Governor General’s Literary Award for Fiction in 2012. He is also the co-author of The Flu Pandemic and You, which received an award from the American Medical Writers Association in 2007, and author of a biography of Tommy Douglas, published as part of the Extraordinary Canadians series. Lam and his family live in Toronto.