the tommy douglas plan, which many canadians erroneously believe was the forerunner to our single payer system, was a way for farmers in saskatchewan to lower insurance premiums by buying insurance together in bulk. the premier wrote the law to allow for farmers to buy the bulk insurance, collectively. they still had to pay insurance packages and still paid premiums, but those premiums were lowered by the collectivized insurance, which allowed them to socialize risk. this was modeled on the canadian wheat board. 

this is also how obamacare works.

it's not single payer at all.

single payer was brought in by the liberals, and modeled after the nhs in britain. it was supported by all three of the major parties in a minority government. most of the legislation was written by paul martin, sr.

many years later, pierre trudeau packaged a series of scattered laws together into the canada health act and gave it quasi-constitutional status, introducing a series of barriers that would make it extremely difficult to dismantle.