Open for Business/Closed to People: Mike Harris's Ontario

Steve Pitt is a Toronto-based freelance writer and an award-winning journalist. He has written many young adult and children's books, including Day of the Flying Fox: The True Story of World War II Pilot Charley Fox.

On June 8, 1995, Mike Harris and his fellow Progressive Conservatives
swept to power with a majority victory in the Ontario provincial
election. For the Progressive Conservatives, it was a return from the
political wilderness where the Tories had languished for nearly a decade
in third-party opposition status. Within weeks of taking control, the
Harris government began to introduce legislation that would radically
alter the face of provincial government and society in Ontario. Many
people opposed those changes. Some of the most vocal and articulate are
the authors of this collection of essays.

The essays are divided into three sections. Part 1 discusses the
reasons for the emergence of neoconservative governments around the
world. Mike Harris’s “Common Sense Revolution” is examined in the
context of Thatcherism and Reaganomics. Part 2 analyzes the effects of
unorthodox legislation that was passed by the Harris government in its
first year of power. Part 3 contains essays on how the left plans to
fight and even reverse the right-wing trend in Ontario politics;
although well researched, this section reads more like an autopsy report
than a blueprint for a better and brighter future.

If Mike Harris and his government have a single redeeming quality, it
has been missed or ignored by all 17 contributors. Trade unionist James
L. Turk describes Harris as “[a] not too bright former golf pro.”
Dr. Michelle Wineroth, an independent researcher and translator,
discerns in Harris’s personality a “philistine masculinism that
refuses sophisticated and penetrating thought lest it introduce an
effeminacy wholly offensive to the image of a ‘robust,’ conservative
leader.” (Both contributors neglect to mention the premier’s
favorite book, Mr. Silly.)

For the nonpartisan reader, there is very little in this book to whet
the appetite.