Sutherland, Ralph

Jul 19, 2023

Dr. Ralph William Sutherland - Born, Pouce Coupe, B.C. October 19, 1925 – Died, Perth, Ontario, June 28, 2023.

The Last Father of Canada’s Medicare, Veteran, Physician, long time educator, Politician, Author, and avid forester.

Ralph is survived by his four children, Ross (Nancy Bayly) of Verona, Ont., Jane, Jim (Heather Semple), and Robert, (the late Barry Simon) all of Ottawa and his four grandchildren, Wesley Sutherland of Toronto, Alison Sutherland of Cambridge, UK, Grace MacDonald of London, UK, and Candice Bayly-Whittaker of Sydenham, Ontario; as well as two great grandchildren, Brianna Ramsay and Ronnie Johnson Jr.

Ralph had a storied life, from growing up a farm boy in B.C.’s Peace River district to joining the RCAF in 1943. His two years in the Service gave him a chance to enter medicine at the University of Alberta in 1946. He worked summers during his years in medical school at the Esquimalt Naval training division, sailing to Hawaii one summer and meeting his soonto-be wife, also a medical student, Eleanor Miller, who was working at the Empress Hotel in Victoria.

After graduation, Ralph and Eleanor were in General Practice in Camrose, Alberta and Eastend, Saskatchewan. Ralph returned to school in 1959 graduating as a Hospital Administrator from U of T in 1961. He and the family then returned to Saskatchewan where Ralph took up the post of Director of the Hospital Standards Branch and Director of the Medical Care Insurance Program from 1961 to 1965. During this time, he was tasked with both managing the rollout of Medicare and managing the short-lived doctor’s strike of 1962.

Ralph was wooed into taking a position with the Federal Government in 1965 to help implement the national Medicare strategy. His stint as a federal employee was short, moving to the University of Ottawa School of Management in 1966. He was to stay on there for the next 22 years and worked with several generations of Canadian and international health administrators.

The move to Ottawa sparked the political instinct in Ralph who ran unsuccessfully in West Ottawa for the NDP federally and provincially in the late 1960s but won as Alderman 1970-72 and was elected to the city Ottawa Board of Control as a controller 197680. He worked as Marion Dewar’s campaign manager in the 1974 municipal election and was a life long NDP supporter.

His years in Ottawa were a mixture of Professor, Doctor and Political Activist and, while he was not around the house much, he did manage to give his kids support to follow their interests and move onto higher education and into professional lives.

His one great passion was 460 acres (around 200 hectares) of “bush” just outside Plevna, Ontario which he purchased in 1974. Ralph had grown up helping his father “prove up land” in the Peace River and this was his opportunity to return to his backwoods roots. He bought a tractor, and eventually a mill and a skidder and enthusiastically made lumber, so much that some is still stacked in sheds waiting to be used. As a long-time resident in Plevna he developed a great fondness for the rural life and was generally a happy hermit.

Ralph’s marriage to Eleanor ended in 1986. He remarried “the love of his life” Jeannette Bennett in 1995. They had 20+ great years together until her untimely death in 2019. During the last three years of his life, he reconnected with Jeannette’s old friend, Dorothy Rogers. Together, Ralph and Dorothy sang the songs of long ago, played cards, gardened, revived past times and stories and were happy. Ralph will be missed by her and by of all his family.

A memorial will be held July 29 at 3 p.m. at the Clar-Miller Hall, Plevna, Ontario. In lieu of flowers buy chocolate and enjoy, as Ralph often did.