This article, as part of a broader analysis of the fate of the Local Community Service Centres (CLSCs), documents the radically democratic conception of health, healthcare and its management put forth by the popular clinics that emerged in Quebec at the end of the 1960s and which directly inspired the creation of the CLSCs. A rediscovery of this radical model sheds light on current debates about the public healthcare system and the Reform of Social Affairs in which the latter is rooted.