Common Sense Revolution
Encyclopedia
The phrase Common Sense Revolution (CSR) has been used as a political slogan to describe common sense conservative
platforms in Australia and the U.S. state of New Jersey
in the 1990s. Based on the Singapore Model
of economics, its main goal is to reduce taxes while balancing the budget by reducing the size and role of government. However, it is most widely known as the name of the political movement and policy document advocated by Mike Harris
, the Progressive Conservative
premier
of the Canadian
province of Ontario
from 1995 to 2002. This article deals with the "Common Sense Revolution" as it was in Ontario under the Harris government.
premiers such as Leslie Frost
, John Robarts
, and Bill Davis
. However, in 1985, this veritable political dynasty (termed the Big Blue Machine
by observers) came to an end when the minority government of Davis' successor, Frank Miller
, was defeated in the legislature by an alliance between the Liberal Party
of David Peterson
and the left-wing New Democratic Party
(NDP) of Bob Rae
after the PCs won a plurality but not a majority of seats in the provincial election
. The Liberals formed a minority government
with NDP support, and Peterson was sworn in as premier.
After the fall of Miller's government, the PC Party found itself in the political wilderness. Known for decades as competent managers with a left-leaning tendency towards building up Ontario social programs (such as health care and education), they found themselves losing this ground to the Liberals and their youthful leader, Peterson. Sticking to their policy status quo, the party was trounced in the 1987 election
that gave Peterson a majority government
. Faced with massive debt and public disinterest in their leader and policies, the party needed a new angle. In 1990, an upstart junior cabinet minister from Miller's former government named Mike Harris won the leadership of the party. This was widely interpreted as a move to the political right, as Harris defeated the more centrist Dianne Cunningham
.
Harris immediately set about crafting a new image for himself and the party. In his first election in 1990
, he branded himself "the tax fighter." Despite his party's third place showing in the election (which was won by NDP leader Bob Rae), Harris had managed to improve the party standing in the legislature and bring some attention to his cause. After the 1990 election, Harris and his advisors (including prominent Ontario Tories Tony Clement
, then President of the party, Leslie Noble, Alister Campbell and Tom Long) set to work creating a more comprehensive reform package to present to the province. The result was the CSR.
Margaret Thatcher
and U.S. President
Ronald Reagan
during the 1980s. Philosophically it was aligned with the theories of prominent 20th century economist and political theorist Friedrich A. von Hayek
. In fact, during Harris' time in office, political staff at Queen's Park — the provincial seat of government — were known to keep copies of Hayek's seminal work The Road to Serfdom
on hand in their offices.
The central foci of the CSR were tax reduction, balancing the budget, reducing the size and role of government, and an emphasis on individual economic responsibility (often summarized by an opposition to government hand-outs). Among other things Harris promised to reduce personal income tax rates by 30% and balance the provincial budget at the same time (which had reached a record $10 billion deficit under the NDP).
The CSR was specifically tailored as a reform document. It was presented as a radical change to the status quo of provincial government business, which was widely seen to be poorly managed and inefficient. Indeed, the opening words of the document were "The people of Ontario have a message for their politicians — government isn't working anymore. The system is broken."
called the 1995 election
, most political commentators were sure that Liberal leader Lyn McLeod
would end up taking the premier's job. However, this prediction proved rather premature.
Sticking to the contents of the CSR, Harris fought a campaign focused on simple, easily communicated messages. Specifically, he consistently hammered home the party's promises to lower taxes and reduce the number of people on welfare (Ontario's social assistance program). The turning point in the election is often considered to be Harris' performance in the televised leader's debate. Rather than get caught up in the debate between McLeod and Rae, Harris used his camera time to speak directly to the camera to convey CSR points, virtually ignoring all questions asked of him by his opponents. Another major contributing factor was a powerful and focussed advertising campaign which stuck to 3 key policy elements - "Work for Welfare, Scrap the Quota Law (Affirmative Action) and Tax Cuts for Jobs - Common Sense for a Change". As a result, Harris and the PC's won a strong majority government in the election as the PCs took 82 of the province's 130 seats.
A signature element of the Mike Harris record was his commitment to do "exactly what I say I will do". And in fact, notwithstanding substantial controversy regarding several key components of the Common Sense Revolution platform, Harris went on to implement the platform almost in its entirety. Over several years, income taxes were cut as much as 30%. Spending discipline and cuts in "low priority areas" allowed government spending to be constrained with the exception of health care, where government spending rose each year the PCs were in office (from $17.6B in 1994/95 to $27.6B in 2003/04). Dramatic welfare reforms (including reductions in welfare payments to 'able-bodied citizens' through the division of the former Welfare program into the Ontario Disability Support Program and the Workfare program, which required able-bodied citizens to work for support) contributed to a reduction of welfare consumption in Ontario. With economic growth in North America generally strong, Ontario over the next 5 years outperformed every Canadian province except oil-rich Alberta, every US State and in fact, every OECD nation. This strong growth, (which supporters say is at least in part likely correlated with the favourable economic impact of cuts in marginal tax rates) allowed Harris to eliminate for a while the $11 billion annual deficit he had inherited from previous Premiers David Peterson and Bob Rae. Although the provincial budget was indeed balanced for the last several years of Harris's own time in office, his successor and former deputy Ernie Eves left office with a $5 billion deficit. The incoming Liberal government and some commentators attributed much of that deficit to Harris's policies, especially his large-scale tax cuts.
's government Task Force on the Greater Toronto Area, chaired by Anne Golden
. When the final report (called the 'Golden Report') was released in 1996, it called for a GTA-tier of local government and for inter-municipal service agencies (based on a similar model to that of Metro Toronto government).
The net effect of this proposal was that it countered the Mike Harris pledge of "less government." The creation of a larger organizing body for the region ran counter to his party's advocacy of smaller government. Harris had felt that politicians, in particular lower level city councillors, were problematic to his party, and prevented free enterprise
. The plan for reduced government might have emulated Margaret Thatcher
's approach that eliminated democratically elected upper-tier city and metropolitan region governments, replacing them with a collection of more politically amenable appointed special-purpose bodies dominated by patronage. See Greater London Council
.
While many suburban municipalities grew rapidly during Harris' first term (1995–1999), some, such as Opposition member Bud Wildman
, have argued that the net effect of many CSR policies was to transfer wealth from urban to suburban areas and to refocus services to commuters and suburbs. In a highly controversial move, the former city of Toronto
was merged with the five surrounding cities of Metropolitan Toronto to form a new single-tier "megacity" (a term coined by the local media). The Harris government saw the megacity as a cost-cutting measure. The fact that the merger took place in Toronto, a region with a lower proportion Conservative MPPs, further polarized the debate on the merit of the merger. Some municipalities, particularly Toronto, also complained that the government was "downloading" the costs of services that the province had formerly paid for onto local city and municipal governments.
Long before the merger, in October 1996, a focus group conducted by Angus Reid
for the government warned Municipal Affairs Minister Al Leach that there would be "considerable public resistance" to the creation of a unified Toronto. Leach would go on to blame local mayors and community groups for the opposition, going on to be quoted in the same article as saying: "In the end, it became a cause célèbre for all of the issues that the government was bringing forward on its agenda".
One of the loudest opponents to the new city was former Toronto mayor John Sewell
who led the action group Citizens for Local Democracy.
In April 1997 the government introduced Bill 103 (City of Toronto Act
). The Ontario New Democratic Party
filibuster
ed the legislation by proposing a series of amendments, each of which required the government to consult the residents of a specific street in the city before implementing the amalgamation. One street, Cafon Court in Etobicoke
, had its amendment successfully passed when the number of Tory MPPs actually present in the legislative chamber briefly dropped below the number of NDP members, although the Tories later voted to strike the Cafon amendment.
The round-the-clock fight at Queen's Park lasted 10 days before the legislation was finally passed on April 21. On January 1, 1998, the new single-tier City of Toronto came into existence, superseding the former two-tier structure of Metropolitan Toronto, and the constituent cities of Toronto, York, North York, Etobicoke, Scarborough and the Borough of East York.
Other controversial municipal amalgamations took place during Harris' second term, including in Ottawa
, Hamilton
, Greater Sudbury and Kawartha Lakes
. Unlike the Toronto amalgamation, however, these all involved large rural areas in addition to the primary urban core. Controversy over the amalgamations remains a significant political issue in some of these cities as of 2009.
. (Blue being the official colour of the party).
The Blueprint followed the same theoretical framework as its predecessor, yet was tempered for a much different political environment. In 1995 the message had been "reform" and "revolution", but after four years of conservative government, the message became a balance between stability and emphasizing that there was still "much left to do".
Though not as successful as the CSR, the Blueprint was part of a successful re-election campaign, allowing Harris to win another majority government (defeating new Liberal leader Dalton McGuinty
).
Harris resigned as premier in 2002, and was succeeded by Ernie Eves
. Through a variety of factors, including dissatisfaction with the effects of the government's platform policies, deterioration of municipal services after downloading, the Walkerton Tragedy
and Eves' handling of the Northeast Blackout
, the Progressive Conservatives were defeated in the 2003 provincial election
by Dalton McGuinty.
Common sense conservative
A common sense conservative is an advocate of conservative politics who adopts the rhetoric of "common sense" to frame his or her arguments. The term is almost always used to apply to domestic and fiscal policy...
platforms in Australia and the U.S. state of New Jersey
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...
in the 1990s. Based on the Singapore Model
Economy of Singapore
Singapore has a highly developed state capitalist mixed economy; the state owns stakes in firms that comprise perhaps 60% of the GDP through entities such as the sovereign wealth fund Temasek...
of economics, its main goal is to reduce taxes while balancing the budget by reducing the size and role of government. However, it is most widely known as the name of the political movement and policy document advocated by Mike Harris
Mike Harris
Michael Deane "Mike" Harris was the 22nd Premier of Ontario from June 26, 1995 to April 15, 2002. He is most noted for the "Common Sense Revolution", his Progressive Conservative government's program of deficit reduction in combination with lower taxes and cuts to government...
, the Progressive Conservative
Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario
The Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario , is a right-of-centre political party in Ontario, Canada. The party was known for many years as "Ontario's natural governing party." It has ruled the province for 80 of the years since Confederation, including an uninterrupted run from 1943 to 1985...
premier
Premier (Canada)
In Canada, a premier is the head of government of a province or territory. There are currently ten provincial premiers and three territorial premiers in Canada....
of the Canadian
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
province of Ontario
Ontario
Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....
from 1995 to 2002. This article deals with the "Common Sense Revolution" as it was in Ontario under the Harris government.
Origin
From 1943 to 1985, the Progressive Conservative (PC) Party held uninterrupted power in Ontario, under Red ToryRed Tory
A red Tory is an adherent of a particular political philosophy, tradition, and disposition in Canada somewhat similar to the High Tory tradition in the United Kingdom; it is contrasted with "blue Tory". In Canada, the phenomenon of "red toryism" has fundamentally, if not exclusively, been found in...
premiers such as Leslie Frost
Leslie Frost
Leslie Miscampbell Frost, was a politician in Ontario, Canada, who served as the 16th Premier from May 4, 1949 to November 8, 1961. Due to his lengthy tenure, he gained the nickname "Old Man Ontario".-Early years:...
, John Robarts
John Robarts
John Parmenter Robarts, PC, CC, QC was a Canadian lawyer and statesman, and the 17th Premier of Ontario.-Early life:...
, and Bill Davis
Bill Davis
William Grenville "Bill" Davis, was the 18th Premier of Ontario, Canada, from 1971 to 1985. Davis was first elected as the MPP for Peel in the 1959 provincial election where he was a backbencher in Leslie Frost's government. Under John Robarts, he was a cabinet minister overseeing the education...
. However, in 1985, this veritable political dynasty (termed the Big Blue Machine
Big Blue Machine
The Big Blue Machine was a nickname for the group of strategists and advisors to the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party in Ontario, Canada, in the 1970s and 1980s. The moniker was coined by journalist Claire Hoy of the Toronto Star in April 1971...
by observers) came to an end when the minority government of Davis' successor, Frank Miller
Frank Miller (politician)
Frank Stuart Miller, was a Canadian politician, who served as the 19th Premier of Ontario for four months in 1985.-Early life and political career:...
, was defeated in the legislature by an alliance between the Liberal Party
Ontario Liberal Party
The Ontario Liberal Party is a provincial political party in the province of Ontario, Canada. It has formed the Government of Ontario since the provincial election of 2003. The party is ideologically aligned with the Liberal Party of Canada but the two parties are organizationally independent and...
of David Peterson
David Peterson
David Robert Peterson, PC, O.Ont was the 20th Premier of the Province of Ontario, Canada, from June 26, 1985 to October 1, 1990. He was the first Liberal premier of Ontario in 42 years....
and the left-wing New Democratic Party
Ontario New Democratic Party
The Ontario New Democratic Party or , formally known as New Democratic Party of Ontario, is a social democratic political party in Ontario, Canada. It is a provincial section of the federal New Democratic Party. It was formed in October 1961, a few months after the federal party. The ONDP had its...
(NDP) of Bob Rae
Bob Rae
Robert Keith "Bob" Rae, PC, OC, OOnt, QC, MP is a Canadian politician. He is the Member of Parliament for Toronto Centre and interim leader of the Liberal Party of Canada....
after the PCs won a plurality but not a majority of seats in the provincial election
Ontario general election, 1985
The Ontario general election of 1985 was held on May 2, 1985, to elect members of the 33rd Legislative Assembly of the Province of Ontario, Canada...
. The Liberals formed a minority government
Minority government
A minority government or a minority cabinet is a cabinet of a parliamentary system formed when a political party or coalition of parties does not have a majority of overall seats in the parliament but is sworn into government to break a Hung Parliament election result. It is also known as a...
with NDP support, and Peterson was sworn in as premier.
After the fall of Miller's government, the PC Party found itself in the political wilderness. Known for decades as competent managers with a left-leaning tendency towards building up Ontario social programs (such as health care and education), they found themselves losing this ground to the Liberals and their youthful leader, Peterson. Sticking to their policy status quo, the party was trounced in the 1987 election
Ontario general election, 1987
The Ontario general election of 1987 was held on September 10, 1987, to elect members of the 34th Legislative Assembly of the Province of Ontario, Canada.The governing Ontario Liberal Party, led by David Peterson, was returned to power with a large majority...
that gave Peterson a majority government
Majority government
A majority government is when the governing party has an absolute majority of seats in the legislature or parliament in a parliamentary system. This is as opposed to a minority government, where even the largest party wins only a plurality of seats and thus must constantly bargain for support from...
. Faced with massive debt and public disinterest in their leader and policies, the party needed a new angle. In 1990, an upstart junior cabinet minister from Miller's former government named Mike Harris won the leadership of the party. This was widely interpreted as a move to the political right, as Harris defeated the more centrist Dianne Cunningham
Dianne Cunningham
Dianne Cunningham is a politician in Ontario, Canada. She was a Progressive Conservative member of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario from 1988 to 2003, and a cabinet minister in the governments of Mike Harris and Ernie Eves....
.
Harris immediately set about crafting a new image for himself and the party. In his first election in 1990
Ontario general election, 1990
The Ontario general election of 1990 was held on September 6, 1990, to elect members of the 35th Legislative Assembly of the province of Ontario, Canada....
, he branded himself "the tax fighter." Despite his party's third place showing in the election (which was won by NDP leader Bob Rae), Harris had managed to improve the party standing in the legislature and bring some attention to his cause. After the 1990 election, Harris and his advisors (including prominent Ontario Tories Tony Clement
Tony Clement
Tony Peter Clement, PC, MP is a Canadian federal politician, President of the Treasury Board, Minister for the Federal Economic Initiative for Northern Ontario and member of the Conservative Party of Canada....
, then President of the party, Leslie Noble, Alister Campbell and Tom Long) set to work creating a more comprehensive reform package to present to the province. The result was the CSR.
Content
The CSR reform package was markedly neo-liberal in nature, closely mirroring the platforms of British Prime MinisterPrime Minister of the United Kingdom
The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the Head of Her Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom. The Prime Minister and Cabinet are collectively accountable for their policies and actions to the Sovereign, to Parliament, to their political party and...
Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher, was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990...
and U.S. President
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....
during the 1980s. Philosophically it was aligned with the theories of prominent 20th century economist and political theorist Friedrich A. von Hayek
Friedrich Hayek
Friedrich August Hayek CH , born in Austria-Hungary as Friedrich August von Hayek, was an economist and philosopher best known for his defense of classical liberalism and free-market capitalism against socialist and collectivist thought...
. In fact, during Harris' time in office, political staff at Queen's Park — the provincial seat of government — were known to keep copies of Hayek's seminal work The Road to Serfdom
The Road to Serfdom
The Road to Serfdom is a book written by the Austrian-born economist and philosopher Friedrich von Hayek between 1940–1943, in which he "warned of the danger of tyranny that inevitably results from government control of economic decision-making through central planning," and in which he argues...
on hand in their offices.
The central foci of the CSR were tax reduction, balancing the budget, reducing the size and role of government, and an emphasis on individual economic responsibility (often summarized by an opposition to government hand-outs). Among other things Harris promised to reduce personal income tax rates by 30% and balance the provincial budget at the same time (which had reached a record $10 billion deficit under the NDP).
The CSR was specifically tailored as a reform document. It was presented as a radical change to the status quo of provincial government business, which was widely seen to be poorly managed and inefficient. Indeed, the opening words of the document were "The people of Ontario have a message for their politicians — government isn't working anymore. The system is broken."
1995 Election and its impact
When Bob RaeBob Rae
Robert Keith "Bob" Rae, PC, OC, OOnt, QC, MP is a Canadian politician. He is the Member of Parliament for Toronto Centre and interim leader of the Liberal Party of Canada....
called the 1995 election
Ontario general election, 1995
The Ontario general election of 1995 was held on June 8, 1995, to elect members of the 36th Legislative Assembly of the province of Ontario, Canada...
, most political commentators were sure that Liberal leader Lyn McLeod
Lyn McLeod
Lyn McLeod is a politician in Ontario, Canada. She served in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario from 1987 to 2003. McLeod was a cabinet minister in the Liberal government of David Peterson from 1987 to 1990, and served as leader of the Ontario Liberal Party from 1992 to 1996.-Background - Pre...
would end up taking the premier's job. However, this prediction proved rather premature.
Sticking to the contents of the CSR, Harris fought a campaign focused on simple, easily communicated messages. Specifically, he consistently hammered home the party's promises to lower taxes and reduce the number of people on welfare (Ontario's social assistance program). The turning point in the election is often considered to be Harris' performance in the televised leader's debate. Rather than get caught up in the debate between McLeod and Rae, Harris used his camera time to speak directly to the camera to convey CSR points, virtually ignoring all questions asked of him by his opponents. Another major contributing factor was a powerful and focussed advertising campaign which stuck to 3 key policy elements - "Work for Welfare, Scrap the Quota Law (Affirmative Action) and Tax Cuts for Jobs - Common Sense for a Change". As a result, Harris and the PC's won a strong majority government in the election as the PCs took 82 of the province's 130 seats.
A signature element of the Mike Harris record was his commitment to do "exactly what I say I will do". And in fact, notwithstanding substantial controversy regarding several key components of the Common Sense Revolution platform, Harris went on to implement the platform almost in its entirety. Over several years, income taxes were cut as much as 30%. Spending discipline and cuts in "low priority areas" allowed government spending to be constrained with the exception of health care, where government spending rose each year the PCs were in office (from $17.6B in 1994/95 to $27.6B in 2003/04). Dramatic welfare reforms (including reductions in welfare payments to 'able-bodied citizens' through the division of the former Welfare program into the Ontario Disability Support Program and the Workfare program, which required able-bodied citizens to work for support) contributed to a reduction of welfare consumption in Ontario. With economic growth in North America generally strong, Ontario over the next 5 years outperformed every Canadian province except oil-rich Alberta, every US State and in fact, every OECD nation. This strong growth, (which supporters say is at least in part likely correlated with the favourable economic impact of cuts in marginal tax rates) allowed Harris to eliminate for a while the $11 billion annual deficit he had inherited from previous Premiers David Peterson and Bob Rae. Although the provincial budget was indeed balanced for the last several years of Harris's own time in office, his successor and former deputy Ernie Eves left office with a $5 billion deficit. The incoming Liberal government and some commentators attributed much of that deficit to Harris's policies, especially his large-scale tax cuts.
Bill 103
Harris' interest in reforming the political structure of cities dated back to his time in opposition. While the leader of the third party, he created the "Mike Harris Task Force on Bringing Common Sense to Metro" (Toronto), on January 5, 1995. This in many ways was designed to counter Premier Bob RaeBob Rae
Robert Keith "Bob" Rae, PC, OC, OOnt, QC, MP is a Canadian politician. He is the Member of Parliament for Toronto Centre and interim leader of the Liberal Party of Canada....
's government Task Force on the Greater Toronto Area, chaired by Anne Golden
Anne Golden
Anne Golden, CM is a Canadian administrator.She received her BA in history from University College, University of Toronto in 1962. She received an MA from Columbia University and a Ph.D in American history from the University of Toronto....
. When the final report (called the 'Golden Report') was released in 1996, it called for a GTA-tier of local government and for inter-municipal service agencies (based on a similar model to that of Metro Toronto government).
The net effect of this proposal was that it countered the Mike Harris pledge of "less government." The creation of a larger organizing body for the region ran counter to his party's advocacy of smaller government. Harris had felt that politicians, in particular lower level city councillors, were problematic to his party, and prevented free enterprise
Free enterprise
-Transport:* Free Enterprise I, a ferry in service with European Ferries between 1962 and 1980.* Free Enterprise II, a ferry in service with European Ferries between 1965 and 1982....
. The plan for reduced government might have emulated Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher, was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990...
's approach that eliminated democratically elected upper-tier city and metropolitan region governments, replacing them with a collection of more politically amenable appointed special-purpose bodies dominated by patronage. See Greater London Council
Greater London Council
The Greater London Council was the top-tier local government administrative body for Greater London from 1965 to 1986. It replaced the earlier London County Council which had covered a much smaller area...
.
While many suburban municipalities grew rapidly during Harris' first term (1995–1999), some, such as Opposition member Bud Wildman
Bud Wildman
Charles Jackson "Bud" Wildman is a Canadian politician. He served in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario as a New Democratic Party Member of Provincial Parliament from 1975 to 1999, representing the riding of Algoma, and was a cabinet minister in the government of Bob Rae.-Background:He was...
, have argued that the net effect of many CSR policies was to transfer wealth from urban to suburban areas and to refocus services to commuters and suburbs. In a highly controversial move, the former city of Toronto
Toronto
Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...
was merged with the five surrounding cities of Metropolitan Toronto to form a new single-tier "megacity" (a term coined by the local media). The Harris government saw the megacity as a cost-cutting measure. The fact that the merger took place in Toronto, a region with a lower proportion Conservative MPPs, further polarized the debate on the merit of the merger. Some municipalities, particularly Toronto, also complained that the government was "downloading" the costs of services that the province had formerly paid for onto local city and municipal governments.
Long before the merger, in October 1996, a focus group conducted by Angus Reid
Angus Reid
Angus Reid is an offensive lineman for the BC Lions of the Canadian Football League. Reid went to Simon Fraser University and played for the Simon Fraser Clan. He began his career with the Montreal Alouettes but was traded, along with a 5th round draft pick, to BC for Adriano Belli...
for the government warned Municipal Affairs Minister Al Leach that there would be "considerable public resistance" to the creation of a unified Toronto. Leach would go on to blame local mayors and community groups for the opposition, going on to be quoted in the same article as saying: "In the end, it became a cause célèbre for all of the issues that the government was bringing forward on its agenda".
One of the loudest opponents to the new city was former Toronto mayor John Sewell
John Sewell
John Sewell, CM is a Canadian political activist and writer on municipal affairs; he was the mayor of Toronto, Ontario from 1978 to 1980.-Background:...
who led the action group Citizens for Local Democracy.
In April 1997 the government introduced Bill 103 (City of Toronto Act
City of Toronto Act
City of Toronto Act is the name of a series of different acts of parliament that have governed the organization and political powers of the city since Toronto's original incorporation as a city in 1834.-Incorporation of the City of Toronto, 1834:...
). The Ontario New Democratic Party
Ontario New Democratic Party
The Ontario New Democratic Party or , formally known as New Democratic Party of Ontario, is a social democratic political party in Ontario, Canada. It is a provincial section of the federal New Democratic Party. It was formed in October 1961, a few months after the federal party. The ONDP had its...
filibuster
Filibuster
A filibuster is a type of parliamentary procedure. Specifically, it is the right of an individual to extend debate, allowing a lone member to delay or entirely prevent a vote on a given proposal...
ed the legislation by proposing a series of amendments, each of which required the government to consult the residents of a specific street in the city before implementing the amalgamation. One street, Cafon Court in Etobicoke
Etobicoke, Ontario
Etobicoke is a dissolved municipality located within the current city of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Comprising the western section of the current city, it had an official population of 338,117 as measured by the 2001 Census and 334,491 people as of the 2006 Census. While it only contains 13% of...
, had its amendment successfully passed when the number of Tory MPPs actually present in the legislative chamber briefly dropped below the number of NDP members, although the Tories later voted to strike the Cafon amendment.
The round-the-clock fight at Queen's Park lasted 10 days before the legislation was finally passed on April 21. On January 1, 1998, the new single-tier City of Toronto came into existence, superseding the former two-tier structure of Metropolitan Toronto, and the constituent cities of Toronto, York, North York, Etobicoke, Scarborough and the Borough of East York.
Other controversial municipal amalgamations took place during Harris' second term, including in Ottawa
Ottawa
Ottawa is the capital of Canada, the second largest city in the Province of Ontario, and the fourth largest city in the country. The city is located on the south bank of the Ottawa River in the eastern portion of Southern Ontario...
, Hamilton
Hamilton, Ontario
Hamilton is a port city in the Canadian province of Ontario. Conceived by George Hamilton when he purchased the Durand farm shortly after the War of 1812, Hamilton has become the centre of a densely populated and industrialized region at the west end of Lake Ontario known as the Golden Horseshoe...
, Greater Sudbury and Kawartha Lakes
Kawartha Lakes, Ontario
The city of Kawartha Lakes is a unitary municipality in Central Ontario, Canada. Although called a city, Kawartha Lakes is the size of a typical Ontarian county and is mostly rural....
. Unlike the Toronto amalgamation, however, these all involved large rural areas in addition to the primary urban core. Controversy over the amalgamations remains a significant political issue in some of these cities as of 2009.
Successor
Attempting to build on the success of the CSR content and messaging strategy for the 1999 election, Harris and the Ontario Tories branded their new policy document the BlueprintBlueprint
A blueprint is a type of paper-based reproduction usually of a technical drawing, documenting an architecture or an engineering design. More generally, the term "blueprint" has come to be used to refer to any detailed plan....
. (Blue being the official colour of the party).
The Blueprint followed the same theoretical framework as its predecessor, yet was tempered for a much different political environment. In 1995 the message had been "reform" and "revolution", but after four years of conservative government, the message became a balance between stability and emphasizing that there was still "much left to do".
Though not as successful as the CSR, the Blueprint was part of a successful re-election campaign, allowing Harris to win another majority government (defeating new Liberal leader Dalton McGuinty
Dalton McGuinty
Dalton James Patrick McGuinty, Jr., MPP is a Canadian lawyer, politician and, since October 23, 2003, the 24th and current Premier of the Canadian province of Ontario....
).
Harris resigned as premier in 2002, and was succeeded by Ernie Eves
Ernie Eves
Ernest Lawrence "Ernie" Eves was the 23rd Premier of the province of Ontario, Canada, from April 15, 2002, to October 23, 2003.-Beginnings:...
. Through a variety of factors, including dissatisfaction with the effects of the government's platform policies, deterioration of municipal services after downloading, the Walkerton Tragedy
Walkerton Tragedy
The Walkerton Tragedy is a series of events that accompanied the contamination of the water supply of Walkerton, Ontario, Canada, by E. coli bacteria in May 2000.-Summary:Walkerton is a relatively small community located in Ontario...
and Eves' handling of the Northeast Blackout
Northeast Blackout of 2003
The Northeast blackout of 2003 was a widespread power outage that occurred throughout parts of the Northeastern and Midwestern United States and Ontario, Canada on Thursday, August 14, 2003, just before 4:10 p.m....
, the Progressive Conservatives were defeated in the 2003 provincial election
Ontario general election, 2003
The Ontario general election of 2003 was held on October 2, 2003, to elect the 103 members of the 38th Legislative Assembly of the Province of Ontario, Canada....
by Dalton McGuinty.
External links
- Canadian Journal of Regional Science - "Amalgamations, Service Realignment, and Property Taxes: Did the Harris Government Have a Plan for Ontario's Municipalities?"
- http://www.madriverpublishing.ca - The Common (Non)Sense Revolution: The Decline of Progress and Democracy in Ontario ISBN 0-9730682-0-5