Mike Harris
Michael Deane Harris (born January 23, 1945) was the twenty-second Premier of Ontario from June 26, 1995 to April 15, 2002. He is most noted for the "Common Sense Revolution" and his large cuts to provincial programs and taxes.
 | |
| Rank: | 22nd |
| Term of Office: | June 26, 1995 - April 15, 2002 |
| Predecessor: | Bob Rae |
| Successor: | Ernie Eves |
| Date of Birth: | January 23, 1945 |
| Place of Birth: | Toronto, Ontario |
| Spouses: | Mary Alyce Coward Janet Harrison |
| Profession: | Teacher, Businessman |
| Political Party: | PC |
Harris was born in Toronto and grew up in the area around Lake Nipissing, where his father operated a ski hill. Harris worked at his father's ski hill and became a golf pro at a local course. He then went to teacher's college and became an elementary school teacher.
He first sought for public office as a school board trustee in 1975. Five years later he entered provincial politics and defeated the incumbent Liberal MPP in 1981. He rose quickly through the ranks of William Davis's Tory government, becoming a cabinet minister under Frank Miller in 1985.
In that year's provincial election, however, the Tories, led by Miller, won a minority government and were then defeated on a Motion of No Confidence due to a pact between David Peterson's Liberals and Bob Rae's New Democratic Party, consigning the Tories to opposition for the first time in 42 years. Miller resigned and was replaced by Larry Grossman, who in turn announced his resignation shortly after failing to recapture power in the election of 1987. With the party not ready to hold a leadership convention, Grossman (no longer an MPP) technically remained the official leader, with Sarnia MPP Andy Brandt serving as "interim leader" in the Legislature until 1990, when party members in a province-wide vote elected Harris leader over Dianne Cunningham. Under Harris, the Tories placed third in the provincial election that year.
By 1995 the governing New Democratic Party and incumbent Premier Bob Rae had become extremely unpopular with the electorate, mostly because of the state of the economy. The Liberals were leading in the pre-election polls, but after running a disastrously poor campaign began to leak support. A year earlier, on May 3, 1994, Harris had unveiled his aggressive "Common Sense Revolution" reminiscent of the United States Republican Party's "Contract with America," although free of most of its social conservatism. It called for sweeping spending cuts and large tax cuts.
Harris was elected with a sizeable majority government in the 1995 general election. Roughly half of his party's seats came from the more affluent regions of the greater Toronto area (GTA), particularly the suburban belt named the '905' for its area code. Upon election the party immediately began to attract controversy. Its policies involved steep cuts to education, welfare, and Medicare, and the forced amalgamation of municipalities. Provincial income taxes were also cut by 30%. Municipal leaders complained because many of the cuts were "downloading" the costs of services that the province had paid for to their local governments. In 1997 the Ontario teachers held their largest walkout in history, but were defeated. Outside Queen's Park there were frequent large protests and near riots. Economic indicators in Ontario improved dramatically, however, and while the budget was still not balanced by the end of Harris' first term he still had much support.
In 1999 Harris was re-elected by his base in Toronto, but more controversies followed. In Ipperwash Provincial Park, Ontario Provincial Police Acting Sgt. Kenneth Deane (later convicted of criminal negligence causing death) fired on First Nations demonstrators who had occupied the park, killing Dudley George. The government and the OPP maintained that there had not been political involvement in the shooting, and in a court case that went all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada not once did Deane suggest that he was under orders to shoot. Nonetheless, inside the Legislature where they were protected by parliamentary privilege, opposition politicians contended that the attack was ordered by the Premier's office.
Even worse followed when in 2000 the town of Walkerton, Ontario's water became infected by E. coli. Six people died and thousands became sick. It was later discovered that the local official, Stan Koebel,was responsible for water quality had lied, falsified records, failed to test water quality regularly and, when the outbreak occurred, failed promptly to notify the local Medical Officer of Health. He now faces criminal charges. Despite the fact that the Owen Sound office of the Ministry of the Environment (the regional office responsible for Walkerton) had not faced staff cuts, and despite the fact that the local official's lying and falsification of records had gone unnoticed by the previous NDP and Liberal governments, critics claimed that because of cuts to inspection services the Province could not guarantee the safety of the water supply. The report of a public inquiry later noted that the government had been warned that the privatization of water testing labs could jeopardize public health and safety. Ironically, in the case of Walkerton the private-sector lab had accurately identified the presence of the deadly contaminant; it was a public-sector, municipal government employee who failed to act on those private test results and in fact misled medical authorities about the situation. However, part of the root of the problem was with the privatized labs, the findings of it were proprietory and thus only the subscribing utilities had authorized access to this information outside the lab business. Thus only Stan Koebel had authorized access to the findings and he had personal reasons to keeping them to himself. When the water testing was a public concern, the lab would have been obliged to contact the public health authorities themselves about the threat. That, contended by Harris' opponents, is the situation where reckless privatization by the Harris government broke the basic link to the public good that could have averted the disaster.
Harris's government balanced the provincial budget temporarily, however critics contend that cuts in taxes caused a drop in revenues that led to the budget deficits that occured after Harris resigned. Harris' government reduced cut welfare rolls by 500,000 which critics contend has led to a rise in homelessness and poverty.
The government also rewrote labour laws to make it more difficult for workplaces to unionise and make it easier for management to hire "replacement workers" during strikes. They also made it easier for employers to require workers to work more hours without being paid overtime.
Other changes brought in by the Harris government include standardised student tests that were criticized as forcing schools to teach in a manner simply oriented to passing the tests and not in a way to encourage genuine learning. A new provincial funding formula for school boards which were stripped of their own taxation powers which has been criticised for leading to school closures and crippled school services.
He also broke with tradition to place backbench MPPs on Cabinet committees and he appointed more women as deputy ministers (including the only two women to head the Ontario public service) than any other premier in Ontario history.
During his tenure a number of his close aides such as Jaimie Watt, Deb Hutton, Tom Long and Paul Rhodes benfitted from millions of dollars in untendered contracts with government agencies, particularly Hydro One.
On a more personal note, Harris' marriage of twenty-five years broke apart, and he was soon seen in a relationship with socialite Sharon Dunn, which later also ended.
For personal reasons and seriously declining public approval ratings, Harris resigned in 2002 and was succeeded as Tory leader and premier by Ernie Eves.
Later in 2002, Harris joined the Fraser Institute, a right-wing think tank, as a 'Senior Fellow'.
Harris has frequently been cited as a potential federal politician who could "unite the right," but, despite an intense effort to draft him, in December 2003 he announced that he would not run for the leadership of the new Conservative Party of Canada. He endorsed Belinda Stronach, a former business associate, in the subsequent 2004 Conservative Party of Canada leadership race.
|
Preceded by: Bob Rae 1990-1995 | Premier of Ontario 1995-2002 |
Succeeded by: Ernie Eves 2002-2003 |
|
Preceded by: Andy Brandt | Ontario Conservative Leaders |
Succeeded by: Ernie Eves |