The Harris Legacy: Reflections on a Transformational Premier

by Allister Campbell (Editor)

Elected for the first of his two terms as premier of Ontario in 1995, Mike Harris introduced some of the most sweeping reforms the province has ever substantial reductions in spending and taxation as well dramatic changes to welfare, education, health care, municipal affairs, labour relations, energy, the environment, and much more. He altered the way elections were fought, how the provincial government is held accountable, how it works with its counterpart in Ottawa, and on his retirement in 2002 said his only regret was “I wish I had done more… faster.” Three decades after the launch of his famous Common Sense Revolution, Mike Harris and his policies still galvanize emotions on all sides of the political spectrum. In this comprehensive and highly readable examination of  The Harris Legacy , an all-star collection of political experts reviews what worked, what didn’t, and what’s still up for debate.

484 pages, Hardcover

Published December 5, 2023

Reviews

[Ed A. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Depending on who you speak to in Ontario, Mike Harris is either the devil incarnate or the best premier the province ever had. This book is a pretty lengthy retrospective of his tenure in Queens Park, 1995 to 2002. It is divided up into 16 chapters, each covering an aspect of political economy during this era: education, health care, energy, the environment, federal-provincial relations, et cetera. I felt it was reasonably balanced, to the degree that is even possible in 2023. Although the editor, Alister Campbell, worked closely with Mike Harris on the campaign trail, much of the content was written by subject matter experts from across the political spectrum.

This book interested me because I grew up in Ontario. The Harris years, as I remember them, were fraught with acrimony. They capped off what was otherwise a bleak period in the province's history: a deep recession, beginning in 1990, led to massive job losses in Ontario as it was a manufacturing hub for U.S. branch plants. The housing market plummeted. Economically, it was the toughest period for the region since the Great Depression. The newly minted NDP government, led by Bob Rae, attempted to bolster the economy via deficit spending. Rising taxes, persistent unemployment, and continued economic weakness conspired to bring Harris's Progressive Conservatives to power in the summer of 1995 - on a platform known as the Common Sense Revolution (CSR).

The Harris Legacy makes a pretty bold statement on the back cover: "...we live in Mike Harris's Ontario today." In order to understand this assertion, I will borrow a passage from journalist Ted McClelland on Chicago, Illinois: "Professional services were Chicago’s new “product.” In 1986, the city’s ad agencies, investment banks, law firms, benefits consultants, accountants, and management consultants employed 17,000 people; a dozen years later, they employed 60,000. Boeing announced it was moving its corporate headquarters to the Loop in the same month that Brach’s closed its West Side candy factory, an emblematic moment in Chicago’s transformation from a city that made things to a city that thought about things."

Mike Harris helped transform Ontario from Canada's manufacturing hub to a thoroughly white collar hub. He had the vision to make Toronto a "world class city" that could compete with cities like Chicago or New York. He wanted corporate and income tax rates lower than surrounding U.S. states. Many policies drafted by the Harris government still affect Ontarians in a dramatic way: the 407 ETR, the Oak Ridges Moraine Conservation Act (now known as the Greenbelt), the EQAO standardized testing, municipal amalgamations, the dissolution of Ontario Hydro, and the Drive Clean program.

I give the book four out of five stars. Though reasonably non-partisan, I felt it leaned in a certain direction. It was pretty light on the various political scandals of the period (and there were many: Ipperwash, Walkerton, Days of Action). Although I was not surprised by this, it definitely distanced the Harris government from these pivotal moments (Ipperwash was blamed on the OPP, Walkerton was traced back to the NDP, and various labour actions were attributed to greed by public unions). I would argue this book is as far to one end of the spectrum as James Motluk's "Life Under Mike" is to the other.

In a 2000 interview, Motluk pointed out a pretty good example of the Harris government distancing itself from unintended consequences: "Harris stands up in public and says, 'Well, we got 40,000 people off the welfare rolls - the Common Sense Revolution works,' and everybody cheers. But nobody asks the obvious question, which is, OK, so where exactly did all these people go? Did they get jobs? Are they living good lives? Or is there possibly any correlation between the 40,000 people no longer on the welfare rolls and that huge influx of homeless people I'm tripping over every day on the street outside my building?"

There was a definite fork in the road for Ontario in the 1990s: voters had to choose between letting their province rust into oblivion like lower Michigan, northeast Ohio, or western New York - or pursue a business-driven agenda that might keep it relevant in this era of globalization. Obviously the latter path was chosen, and it has shaped the province in ways that have become increasingly dysfunctional: the jobs which Harris promised to bring, did indeed arrive. But it was largely low-wage service economy work. His efforts to de-regulate property investment, I believe, led to a rise in landlordism (see the 1997 "Tenant Protection Act"). And while the Toronto condo boom could also be traced back to this, it merely made up for a dearth of public housing. And while I commend Mr. Harris's efforts on the environment (dozens of new provincial parks and conservation areas), I also believe it was the 2001 Oak Ridges Moraine Conservation Act that signed the death warrant for housing affordability in the Greater Toronto Area (see urban containment effects on home prices).

The timing of this book is interesting, as we are less than two years from a federal election in Canada. Cost-of-living (and its close cousins, the economy and immigration) are the primary concerns for federal voters. The conservative opposition led by Pierre Poilievre, has latched on to these fears under the guise of "common sense" austerity and supply-side economics (paging George Santayana!). I would give the Harris Legacy five stars if it spent more time examining the role in which the Harris-era PCs might have played in Ontario's current affordability crisis. To date, I haven't seen anything of this sort written yet.

Mike Harris has been out of office for over 20 years, so those folks most dramatically affected by cost-of-living in Ontario were either not born yet or very young when he was elected. A lot of them probably don't even know who he is. But the impact he's had on their lives is more than Doug Ford and Justin Trudeau put together. There should be no doubt in anyone's mind that key voting blocs in 1995 and 1999 (middle class, white-collar suburbanites) voted with their pocketbooks: lower income taxes and more home equity. Mike Harris's Ontario, indeed.

[valiantdust · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5. It was good. Some of the chapters sounded well balanced. Others had that cultish sound to anything published by an interest group or think tank.