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There once lived a Canadian who is revered today for his vision, compassion and prudence.

He believed that it was wrong for governments to run up huge deficits and debt; that it wasn’t fair for people to fork money out of their jeans on the good-faith understanding that it was meant for schools, roads, hospitals and support for their less fortunate neighbours — only to see it wind up paying interest to big banks. So, as premier of his province from 1944 to 1961, he delivered 17 consecutive budget surpluses, to drastically reduce interest costs and have more to spend on public services. It is a record of fiscal achievement that has never been equaled.

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His name was Tommy Douglas.

It may seem odd that a Conservative minister from Ontario would speak so highly of the former socialist premier of Saskatchewan. And yes, we would differ on a lot of things. But whatever our competing views on the role of government, Tommy Douglas recognized, as few have since, that a vision is meaningless without the means to make it a reality.