Rest assured, Fox News, you can have socialized health care without being a socialist!  Canada’s right-wing former Prime Minister and good buddy of Ronald Reagan, Brian Mulroney, has come out defending Canada’s health care and has even invoked the legacy of the Canadian Medicare’s socialist founder, Tommy Douglas, to do so.

Here is a segment of his speech praising Obama to Conservative leaders last week:

50 years from today, Americans will revere the name Obama.  Because like his Canadian predecessors, he chose the tough responsibilities of national political leadership over the meaningless nostrums of sterile partisanship that we see too much of in Canada and around the world today.

It’s throwing me off a bit, as I am pretty sure this is the first time I have ever come close to agreeing with Mulroney on anything, though it appears this open declaration of love for universal health care is connected some kind of clash of egos between him and current Conservative leader and Prime Minister Stephen Harper (who won’t even weigh in on this issue at all).

And he is praising Obama who I am not quite as convinced is a visionary of healthcare with his public option.  But..still!

I think this really shows how mainstream an issue this can be – in Canada,  people from highly varied political perspectives recognize the value of universal healthcare.

To see some of the video of the speech on Canuck Politics, click here

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