About
Mike Harris
Ontario’s 22nd Premier
(1995-2002).
I suspect my parents always wondered what would become of me.
- Mike Harris, on becoming Ontario’s 22nd Premier-designate, June 8, 1995
Get to know Mike Harris from the beginning
Mike’s parents may have been among the first to underestimate him, but they weren’t the last. After he emerged as Leader of the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party in 1990 (at that time the third and smallest party in the Legislature), he was constantly portrayed in the media as a “golf pro from North Bay.” Within the Toronto-based mainstream media, the geographical reference alone was enough to signal that he could be safely dismissed out-of-hand. But Mike Harris was possessed of uniquely strong character and an innate sense of self-worth, which enabled him to ignore the doubters and overcome the many obstacles in his path.
In the 1990 provincial election, Harris led the party to modest gains in an unusually tough electoral climate for the PCs. But the Party believed he had earned a second chance. In May of 1994, after years of cross-province travel and engaged policy dialogues with party loyalists and external stakeholders, he published a supposedly “radical” election platform – the Common Sense Revolution (CSR). The CSR was “radical” not just because it had been released 18 months before the likely election date. It was also comprehensive and specific, and made substantial commitments regarding cuts to government waste and the number of politicians, as well as levels of income tax and a commitment to achieve a balanced budget within the first term. It also contained strongly worded commitments on the protection of health care spending, mandatory work-for-welfare and a dedication to ensuring Ontario’s educational standards were restored.
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Early Political Career
School board
Mike began his public service engagement when he become a primary school teacher – he taught math – but would leave the teaching profession as the success of his father’s ski resort grew, and, on the strength of that experience, was eventually hired to run North Bay’s Pinewood Golf Club. In 1974, he was elected as a local school board trustee, and in 1977 as Chair of the Nipissing Board of Education. Subsequently he served as president of the Northern Ontario Trustees Association..
Entered provincial politics
Mike soon turned his attention to provincial politics. The local seat of Nipissing had been held by the Liberals for decades. The chances for Mike to win as a PC seemed slim. But people underestimated Mike’s determination – and certainly did not anticipate the way he would grow and develop as a public figure. In 1981 Mike was elected the MPP for Nipissing. He was continuously re-elected there with strong majorities until he retired as Premier in 2002.
Early experience as Cabinet minister
Mike’s hard work at Queens Park was increasingly recognized by all and when Frank Miller replaced the retiring Bill Davis as Premier, he named Mike to Cabinet (first in Natural Resources and then in Energy). But the election of 1985, and the subsequent “Petersen-Rae Accord”, meant an end to 42 years of Progressive Conservative rule. Mike was back on the backbenches, but seen by more and more Conservatives as a potential Leader.
Conservative Leadership
In 1990, the Ontario PCs held a leadership race – the first ever under the new “One-Member-One-Vote” system. The Harris victory was a shock to many, who had once again underestimated him and his capacity to outperform expectations. The Harris honeymoon was brief as Liberal Premier David Peterson called a snap election. The resulting campaign ended with Bob Rae as Ontario’s first NDP Premier. Harris successfully branded himself “The Taxfighter” in that campaign, and the Tories managed to gain a handful of seats, but the Party remained mired in debt and in third place in the Legislature.
Premier of Ontario
First term
Unlike Liberal David Peterson’s sunny outdoor swearing-in back in 1985, the inaugural event for Mike Harris and his new Cabinet was marked by a locked-down Queen’s Park and a heavy police presence. Protesters of every flavour were expected in large numbers. And they showed up in force. Harris’s reply was straightforward. “It’s not going to change our government’s direction.”
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Second term
On June 3, 1999, the Harris PCs were re-elected with a larger plurality than they had secured in their first outing four years earlier. The Party won 59 seats to 35 for the Liberals and nine for the NDP. These numbers look so different from the totals in the 1995 election, because Harris had honoured his promise to cut the number of politicians in the Ontario Legislature with The Fewer Politicians Act of 1996, which cut the number of seats from 130 to 103 (to match the number of federal ridings in the province).
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What has Mike Harris been up to after life in politics
Mike may have maintained a low profile in electoral politics since 2002, but he has remained dynamically active on other fronts. That same year he became a senior fellow at the Fraser Institute and teamed up with former Reform Party Leader Preston Manning to write a provocative policy series entitled Vision for a Canada Strong and Free. The papers re-articulated the democratic principles upon which the country was founded and put forward a series of recommendations for reinvigorating them.
In 2010, North Bay’s Nipissing University dedicated the Harris Learning Library, a project with which he was intimately involved. Later that year the university conferred on him an honourary Doctor of Letters degree. In 2013, Mike became a senior business advisor at the prestigious law firm Fasken Martineau. And in 2014 he was appointed by Prime Minister Stephen Harper to join a team of Canadian observers to oversee the Ukrainian presidential election.
Today, among other private boards, Mike Harris serves as Board Chair for Chartwell Retirement Residences – a network of privately-owned retirement homes.