The Role of the Advisory Planning Committee

The Advisory Planning Committee consisted of three members of the public, three doctors, one representative of the Saskatchewan Chamber of Commerce, one representative of the Saskatchewan Federation of Labour and three members of the Saskatchewan bureaucracy, including the Deputy Minister of Health and his deputy. The committee was intended to represent the interests of all the groups that would be affected by the legislation and was instructed to conduct a thorough examination of public and private insurance programs in Canada and abroad. Two teams went overseas: one to Britain, Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Holland, and the other to Australia and New Zealand. In addition, the committee met 23 times, held 10 days of public meetings and received 49 briefs. But conflict on the committee resulted in an interim majority report with minority reports appended that did not appear until September 1961. Although the majority supported a provincially administered, publicly funded plan, the CPSS representatives and the Chamber of Commerce appointee rejected that approach and urged instead that Saskatchewanians continue to use profession- or insurance company-sponsored prepayment plans, while the government paid for those who could not afford the premiums.