Harris's Ghost

Mike Harris's ghost continues to stalk the province of Ontario. Martin Regg Cohn writes:

It is impossible to follow provincial politics today without fathoming the ghost of Ontario’s 22nd premier, still looming over Ontario — from devastating death tolls to controversial road tolls.

Nursing homes rules were watered down. Water inspections were diluted, setting the stage for Walkerton. Highway 407 was sold for a song to private owners, who promptly reaped windfall profits from blindsided motorists. A fetish for law and order led to a deadly police confrontation with Indigenous protestors at Ipperwash.

You would think that the damage Harris wrought would have fueled a radical redirection of government. Instead, his idealogy took hold and future premiers genuflected to Harris:

Even as Harris faded from public life in 2002 to make big money in big business — chairing the board of the Magna auto parts giant and also Chartwell Retirement Residences (which runs the nursing homes he reconfigured while in power) — he reshaped the business of politics. Borrowing bits of Reaganism and importing elements of Thatcherism, he cobbled together his famous blueprint for power, the Common Sense Revolution.

You don’t have to reread the document to understand its underlying ethos. Never mind the rhetoric about cutting red tape, slashing taxes, unplugging photo radar, downsizing government and downloading welfare, its underpinning is simply this:

Politics shall henceforth be transactional. Not transformational.

This new antediluvian, anti-tax ideology soon infected Liberal opposition leader Dalton McGuinty, who signed a public pledge for the right-wing Canadian Taxpayers Federation foreswearing future increases. When he won power in 2003 — and took stock of a hidden $5-billion deficit concealed by the Tories in that year’s election — McGuinty had to reverse himself by increasing OHIP premiums (a tax by another name).

During his decade in power, McGuinty dreaded any increases and found ways to lower taxes — setting the stage for confrontation with unions when he imposed wage restraints. When Kathleen Wynne took over as premier, she too eschewed tax hikes and pushed for a balanced budget, mindful of the anti-tax legacy bequeathed to her by predecessors both Liberal and PC.

The COVID crisis exposed Harris and The Common Sense Revolution for what they were -- fraud and hoopla. Doug Ford has finally reversed what Harris did:

Only now, in mid-pandemic, has Ford’s government undertaken a course correction. Today’s Tories are spending their way out of an economic emergency. They have ditched any talk of eliminating the deficit or paying down the debt. After first reducing regulations — and regular annual inspections — Ford has vowed to step up comprehensive assessments of nursing homes.

We will wait to see if the course correction is permanent.

Torontoist