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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.

The Hon. Mike Harris

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.

Rise to Power

He first sought election to 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 sat as a backbencher in William Davis's Tory government, and became a cabinet minister under Frank Miller in 1985.

In that year's provincial election, however, the Tories, led by Miller, won a minority of seats in the Legislature. This minority government was quickly defeated on a Motion of No Confidence by David Peterson's Liberals and Bob Rae's New Democratic Party. The agreement between the Liberals and the NDP to allow a Liberal minority government to govern for two years in exchange for the implementation of cerrtain NDP policies consigned the Tories to opposition for the first time in 42 years.

Miller resigned and was replaced by Larry Grossman. Grossman led the party to a disastrous showing in the 1987 election, and announced his resignation shortly thereafter.

The party was not ready to hold a leadership convention. Grossman had lost his seat in the Legislature, and remained the official leader of the party. Sarnia MPP Andy Brandt served 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 1990 election.

On May 3, 1994, Harris unveiled his aggressive "Common Sense Revolution" platform, which was inspired by the United States Republican Party's "Contract with America," although free of much of its social conservatism. It called for sweeping spending cuts and large tax cuts.

By 1995, the governing New Democratic Party and incumbent Premier Bob Rae had become extremely unpopular with the electorate, largely because of the state of the Ontario and North American economies. The Liberals were leading in the pre-election polls, but after running a disastrously poor campaign began to lose support. Harris was elected with a sizeable majority government in the 1995 election. Roughly half of his party's seats came from the more affluent regions of the greater Toronto area (GTA), especially the suburban belt surrounding Metro Toronto, often called the '905' for its telephone area code.

Premier of Ontaro

Upon election, the Harris government 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 formerly paid for onto local city and municipal governments.

In 1997, Ontario's teachers held their largest walkout in history, but were unsuccessful in getting changes to government policies. At Queen's Park, the site of the Ontario Legislature, there were frequent large protests and near-riots. Economic indicators in Ontario improved dramatically however, along with the general rise in the North American economy, and while the Ontario provincial budget was still in deficit by the end of Harris' first term, he had much popular support.

In 1999, the Harris government was re-elected, largely by his political base in the 905 area, but more controversies followed. In Ipperwash Provincial Park, Ontario Provincial Police Acting Sgt. Kenneth Deane fired on First Nations demonstrators who had occupied the park, killing Dudley George. The government and the OPP maintained there had not been political involvement in the shooting. 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. Deane was convicted of criminal negligence causing death. Inside the Legislature, where they were protected from lawsuits by parliamentary privilege, opposition politicians contended the attack was ordered by the Premier's office.

More controversies arose in 2000, when the town water supply of Walkerton became infected by E. coli. Six people died and thousands became ill. It was later discovered the local official responsible for water quality, Stan Koebel, had lied, falsified records, failed to test water quality regularly and, when the outbreak occurred, failed to promptly notify the local Medical Officer of Health. He now faces criminal charges.

Despite the fact 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 Koebel'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 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 these labs were proprietory, and thus only the subscribing utilities had access to their information. Thus only Stan Koebel had authorized access to the findings and he had a personal profit motive for keeping the results secret. When water testing was a public concern, the lab would have been obliged to contact public health authorities about the threat. Thus, Harris' opponents contended, a situation was created where reckless privatization by the Harris government broke a basic responsibility to the public good which 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, lead to budget deficits which occurred after Harris resigned. Harris' government reduced Ontario welfare rolls by 500,000 people; critics contend these cuts led to a rise in homelessness and poverty.

The government also rewrote labour laws to make it more difficult for workplaces to unionize and make it easier for management to hire "replacement workers" during strikes. They also rewrote labour laws to make it easier for employers to require their workers to work more hours without being paid overtime wages.

Other changes brought in by the Harris government include standardized student tests. These were criticized by educators as forcing schools to teach in a manner simply oriented to test-passing, and not teach in a way to encourage genuine learning. A new provincial funding formula for school boards stripped the local boards of their taxation powers, which has been criticized for leading to school closures and crippled school services.

Harris also broke with tradition to place backbench MPPs on Cabinet committees, and appointed more women as deputy ministers than any other premier in Ontario history, including the only two women to head the Ontario public service.

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, which operates the province's electricity grid.

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 his long-time friend and Minister of Finance, 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". 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