Almost 50 years after fighting for civil rights and social causes, the fire still burns for actor Shirley Douglas.

The daughter of Canadian political icon Tommy Douglas and mother of actor Kiefer Sutherland has signed an affidavit asking the federal government to release secret RCMP files on her and her father.

"I didn't want them to use our family or the right to privacy as an excuse not to release those files," Shirley Douglas said in a recent interview. Last week she was awarded a Women in Film & Television International Achievement award.

Tommy Douglas was a socialist firebrand and is widely considered the father of universal health care. He formed the first socialist government in North America in 1944 when he became premier of Saskatchewan. He then rose to national prominence as the leader of the federal New Democratic Party in the 1960s. He died in 1986.

In 2004, Tommy Douglas was named the greatest Canadian in a CBC poll.

While his family can now bask in that glory, they also can’t forget they were the subject of surveillance by the RCMP back in Tommy Douglas’s heyday.

Three years ago, Library and Archives Canada handed over material that revealed the RCMP had kept an eye on the family patriarch. Some files still remain secret, but a new application seeks to have those files opened.

While the content of those files remains locked up, Douglas says there was never any doubt it wasn’t just her father who was being watched – she was under surveillance as well.

Douglas, who was awarded the Order of Canada in 2003, was active in the anti-war movement in the U.S. in the 1960s. She later obtained FBI files the agency had about her activities. The report was censored with black marker throughout the 2,000-plus pages, preventing her from reading much of what was reported, but there was a constant thread which she still finds troubling.

"What always bothered me about being followed is the quality of the follower," she said. "When I saw what they collected about me, so often it was an ill-informed and ignorant blurb. Much of what was saved was so sloppy and incorrect I find it disconcerting."

Even today, decades later, the former wife of actor Donald Sutherland marvels at the time and effort police spent following her and others. Some former radicals like Jane Fonda are now part of mainstream America.

"What bothers me is the amount of money spent following me,” Shirley Douglas said. “Why follow me? If they wanted to know what I was up to, I would have told them. I had nothing to hide. I knew my phone was tapped and I didn't care.

But the 75-year-old actor’s real issue isn’t the invasion of privacy, it’s not having the opportunity to challenge those police reports.

"A target of this surveillance has no clue as to what the findings are or that they even exist. So they have no chance to repudiate them, and to me, that is the real problem. A person is far better off to be charged and taken to court because then you can fight those allegations fairly," she said.

"Why would you need to keep police files secret that are 70 years old?" she said. "Certainly not for national security. If it is because someone is going to be embarrassed as to how silly these files are, then let someone be embarrassed."