It is blessed with abundant and productive farmland, a growing oil sector, a couple of good universities, and abundant deposits of uranium. I guess they are rich enough to be socialists.
Just to let you all know, that is absolute BS. Just because Tommy Douglas was a Saskatchewan social credit party leader in the 50's and 60's, doesn't make Saskatchewan a left leaning province.
In fact Saskatchewan has elected conservatives almost exclusively for the past 10 years in federal elections, All except for one or two seats. It is hardly a "left leaning province" at all.
As for the HCA claim, a number of efforts to establish social insurance systems in Canada had been unable to overcome provincial opposition to federal 'incursion' into their jurisdiction. These included the 1937 Rowell-Sirois Commission on Dominion-Provincial Relations, and the 1945 Green Book proposals of Prime Minister Mackenzie King as part of the post-World War II reconstruction. At the same time, Canada resembled other developed economies in its receptivity to a more expansive government role in improving social welfare, particularly given the widespread sacrifices during World War II and the still active memories of the Great Depression.
Accordingly, following the collapse of the conference proposals in 1946, in 1947, the social democratic premier of Saskatchewan, Tommy Douglas of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF), decided to go it alone, and established A publicly fund hospital insurance plan IN SASKACHEWAN, the first PROVINCE in Canada to establich such a plan.
Other provinces - including British Columbia, Alberta, and Ontario, introduced their own insurance plans, with varying degrees of coverage, and varying degrees of success. When Newfoundland joined Canada, it brought along its system of cottage hospitals.
These policy initiatives increased pressure on the federal government to get involved, both to assist those provinces which had introduced programs, and to deal with the perceived inequity in those provinces whose citizens did not yet have coverage for hospital care.
The result was that the Progressive Conservative government of John Diefenbaker, who also happened to represent Saskatchewan, introduced and passed (with all-party approval) the Hospital Insurance and Diagnostic Services Act of 1957. This shared the costs of covering hospital services. By the start date (July 1, 1958) five provinces -- Newfoundland, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, and British Columbia - had programs in place which could receive the federal funds. By January 1, 1961, when Quebec finally joined, all provinces had universal coverage for hospital care.
So you can actually attribute the very first nation wide federal health care system with John Diefenbaker.
You sure don't know Canada well for an ex Canadian.
If you really want to know just how conservative Saskatchewan has progressively become of the past 30 years, you should look it up.
The most left wing nut province in Canada is Ontario.