Prairie Giant: The Tommy Douglas Story

Prairie Giant: The Tommy Douglas Story is a CBC Television miniseries first aired in two consecutive parts on March 12 and March 13, 2006. It dramatizes and fictionalizes the life and career of Tommy Douglas, the Canadian politician who oversaw the legislation of Canada's first public healthcare program as Premier of Saskatchewan. The production is directed by John N. Smith and produced by Kevin DeWalt. Prairie Giant is distributed in the United States by Invincible Pictures.

The CBC promoted Prairie Giant as a "real story about real people" but the series was subjected to widespread commentary on the fallacies present in the story line. Historical fallacies and omissions concerning Canada's public healthcare system and its history, Douglas's personal life and career, and the mischaracterization of the Rt. Hon. James Garfield Gardiner were identified.

On March 16, 2006, Saskatoon StarPhoenix political columnist Randy Burton, among other things, wrote "It was wonderful television but abysmal history" and "On almost every score, scriptwriter Bruce Smith got Gardiner wrong. Significant historical events were either twisted beyond recognition or worse, drawn out of thin air." Burton identified specific instances of historical error and highlighted the Estevan coal miner’s strike as "probably the most egregious error in Prairie Giant... [Gardiner's] speech is broadcast live to the entire province and leaves the clear impression that Gardiner was the premier of the day... This whole scene is false... Worse, to suggest the Liberal Gardiner would publicly attack immigrants in such a manner belies his history of fighting the Ku Klux Klan... On the television show, Gardiner is almost always shown with a drink in his hand but, in real life, he was a teetotaler... to suggest that he was nothing but a thuggish strongman, who put political squabbles ahead of the welfare of his province’s interests, is nothing but character assassination."

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