Woodrow Lloyd

Who was Woodrow Lloyd?

Woodrow Stanley Lloyd was a Canadian politician and educator. Born in Saskatchewan in 1913, and became a teacher in the early 1930s. He worked as a teacher and school principal until 1944, and was involved with the province's Teachers' Federation, eventually becoming its president. He was first elected as a Member of the Legislative Assembly of Saskatchewan in 1944. He served as Education Minister and then Treasurer in Tommy Douglas's Co-operative Commonwealth Federation government between 1944 to 1961. He succeeded Douglas as Saskatchewan Premier in late 1961. Lloyd is best remembered as the man who piloted Canada's first Medicare program from legislation to implementation in 1962, and overcoming that summer's doctors' strike to enable it to continue. He was defeated in the 1964 Saskatchewan general election and served the next six-years as the Leader of the Official Opposition. He stepped down as the New Democratic Party's leader in 1970, and from the Legislature in 1971. He was appointed to an United Nations post in South Korea, where he died of a heart attack in 1972.