Canadians need to work together to maintain and upgrade the health care system that Tommy Douglas had a big part in setting up, said the former premier's daughter, Shirley Douglas, during a brief visit to Weyburn on Tuesday.

Douglas and her daughter, Rachel Sutherland, visited the city and the T.C. Douglas Centre for filming of a segment for CBC-TV's Life and Times show. In addition to filming and touring the museum set up in memory of her father, Douglas dropped in to the dress rehearsal on Tuesday evening for the Signal Hill Theatre production of The Ghosts of Crocus, which opens tonight and runs through to Sunday afternoon.

During a break in filming around the centre, Douglas spoke fervently about Canada's health care system, for which cause she has been speaking across the country in support of what was her father's greatest legacy as an MP and premier of Saskatchewan.

"What we have to do is come together so that we don't lose it. The first phase of health care was brought in and it's been really neglected, with massive cuts made by the federal government. They have damaged the health care system more than they realize," said Douglas.

She hasn't been speaking as much lately, as she is part of the cast of the CBC show, The Wind At My Back, which films in Toronto, but her efforts are continuing in support of health care, including lobbying government officials as well as speaking to public audiences.

"I had a meeting with (federal Finance Minister) Paul Martin this spring. I'm not even sure they're fully aware how deeply they have hurt the health system," she said, adding her constant demand continues to be for a national summit to be called on the issue, with the prime minister, the premiers, health care workers and members of the public.

Part of the second phase of health care as envisioned by her father was to bring in public health clinics all across the country to help make health care more universally accessible, she said. This goal, along with the fight against privatization of health care such as is starting to happen in Ontario and Alberta, are the main focal points of her campaign in support of medicare.

Asked what T.C. Douglas might have done if he saw today's health care system, Shirley replied, "Before he died, he was saying if you're not ready to be vigilant, you'll lose medicare, because there was already a strangulation of the health care system starting. There were subtle little things happening."

Life and Times producer Julia Bennett said they wanted to do a segment on T.C. Douglas because of his significant contribution to our present-day health care system.

"This is the one thing that all the polls say unites us, medicare. It was a discovery of excitement how he became the man who worked day and night here, running a soup kitchen in the basement, giving out free fruit, running for the CCF. We're trying to capture what made this guy tick," said Bennett.

Douglas enjoyed her return to Weyburn, one of only a few visits she has made since she moved away with her parents to Regina in 1944, when her father was elected premier.

"My first 10 years were spent here, and that is so important to me. It was an exciting time in the province, and it was a dreadful and difficult time too with the Depression, but I'm so grateful to have had that experience of living here," said Douglas. "It's very exciting, just even the drive from Regina to Weyburn. It's very moving; it brings back such a flood of memories, of people I knew here. They were such tremendous people."

Sitting in a pew in Calvary Baptist Church, where her father was a minister before going into politics, also brought memories back to her.

"I remember this church extremely well. We sang, we were all in plays here. My father loved the theatre, and felt there was an important place for poetry and music," she said, adding as she looked around the restored building, "I'm extremely grateful to see this place."

Her daughter Rachel, twin sister of actor Kiefer Sutherland, said this was her first trip to Weyburn with her mother, although she had been here twice before, for the opening of the T.C. Douglas Centre, and when the centre had a grand piano donated to it.

"I didn't grow up here, but my grandparents always spoke of it. We would spend two weeks with them every summer when they lived in Ottawa. It's nice to see the museum and the pictures; it brings back memories, great memories, of my grandfather, and of my grandmother as well," said Rachel, who now works as an independent television producer.

The segment on T.C. Douglas will air on the CBC sometime in the fall, in either October or November.