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Today in Canada's Political History: August 2, 1961, Tommy Douglas speaks to the founding NDP convention that makes him the party’s first leader

  • Arthur Milnes

  • National Newswatch

  • August 2, 2026

Arthur Milnes, creator of Art's History on National Newswatch, is an accomplished public historian, award-winning journalist, and in-house historian at the Frontenac Club Hotel who brings Canada's political history to life through engaging stories, historical insights, and personal anecdotes drawn from his encounters with many of the country's leading figures.

CCF hero Tommy Douglas, who made history when he and his socialist party took office in Saskatchewan in 1944 and would later introduce the continent’s first-ever single-payer health care system, addressed the founding convention of the NDP on this date in 1961. The following day Tommy (as he is still often called with great respect by many across the party spectrum today) became the new party’s inaugural leader. You can watch some of Tommy’s convention address to delegates before balloting started at this link: https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/video/9.6744857


 



Arthur Milnes is an accomplished public historian and award-winning journalist. He was research assistant on The Rt. Hon. Brian Mulroney’s best-selling Memoirs and also served as a speechwriter to then-Prime Minister Stephen Harper and as a Fellow of the Queen’s Centre for the Study of Democracy under the leadership of Tom Axworthy. A resident of Kingston, Ontario, Milnes serves as the in-house historian at the 175 year-old Frontenac Club Hotel.