52 Facts About Mike Harris

Michael Deane Harris was born on January 23,1945 and is a Canadian retired politician who served as the 22nd premier of Ontario from 1995 to 2002 and leader of the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario from 1990 to 2002.

Mike Harris became leader of the Progressive Conservative Party in the 1990 leadership election.

That same year, a provincial election was called in which Mike Harris carried the PCs to a modest boost in support, though they still remained in third place.

Mike Harris later led the party to a second majority in 1999.

The Harris Government faced the 1997 Ontario teachers' strike and gained criticism for its handling of the Walkerton E coli outbreak and the Ipperwash crisis.

Mike Harris grew up in North Bay, where his father operated the Wasi Falls Resort fishing camp.

Mike Harris attended Waterloo Lutheran University but left after a year.

At the age of 21, following his father's purchase of a ski hill, Mike Harris moved for two years to Sainte-Adele, Quebec, where he became a ski instructor.

Mike Harris was employed as an elementary school teacher at W J Fricker Public School in North Bay where he taught grade seven and eight mathematics for several years in a new open-concept class of 120 students.

Mike Harris continued in his previous occupation as a ski-instructor at Nipissing Ridge on weekends as well as working at his father's fishing camp during the summer season.

Mike Harris eventually left the teaching profession as the success of the ski resort escalated.

Mike Harris was elected to public office as a school board trustee in 1974.

Mike Harris entered provincial politics in the 1981 election, and defeated Mike Bolan, the incumbent Liberal MPP in Nipissing.

Mike Harris later suggested that he was motivated to enter politics by an opposition to the policies of Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau.

Mike Harris sat as a backbencher in Bill Davis's PC government from 1981 to 1985.

Mike Harris supported Frank Miller's successful bid to succeed Davis as party leader in 1985 and took the role of rival candidate Dennis Timbrell to prepare Miller for the party's all-candidate debates.

The Tories were reduced to a minority government in the 1985 provincial election, although Mike Harris was personally re-elected without difficulty.

Mike Harris kept the natural resources portfolio after the election, and was named minister of energy on May 17,1985.

Mike Harris was chosen as PC house leader, and had become the party's dominant voice in the legislature by 1989.

Mike Harris entered the 1990 leadership race, and defeated Dianne Cunningham in a province-wide vote to replace Grossman as the party's official leader.

The 1990 provincial election was called soon after Mike Harris became party leader.

On 3 May 1994, Mike Harris unveiled his "Common Sense Revolution" platform.

Mike Harris used his camera time to speak directly to the camera to convey his party's Common Sense Revolution platform.

Shortly after assuming office, the Mike Harris government announced that several hundred nurses would be laid off to cut costs in the health sector.

Mike Harris compared the laid off hospital workers to the people who lost their jobs after the hula hoop fad died down in the early 1960s, commenting "Just as Hula-Hoops went out and those workers had to have a factory and a company that would manufacture something else that's in, it's the same in government, and you know, governments have put off these decisions for so many years that restructuring sometimes is painful".

The Mike Harris government cut funding of major urban infrastructure projects upon assuming office.

Mike Harris reduced the number of MPPs from 130 to 103 by redrawing riding boundaries to correspond to federal electoral districts.

The Mike Harris government passed Bill 26, the Savings and Restructuring Act, which undertook an extensive program of municipal mergers between 1996 and 2002.

The Mike Harris government passed the Public Sector Salary Disclosure Act in 1996, publishing so-called Sunshine lists annually to disclose wages and benefits of public employees earning over $100,000 per year, to increase accountability.

Mike Harris introduced a requirement for High School students to complete a mandatory 40 hours of volunteering in community service in order to graduate.

Shortly after being sworn in, Mike Harris faced his first crisis as premier.

In 1999, the Mike Harris government was re-elected for a second term with a majority government, helped largely by its political base in the suburban areas around Toronto.

Mike Harris supporters pointed to the fact that government revenues rose from $48 billion in 1995 to $64 billion by 2001, when the budget was balanced.

In 1999 Mike Harris announced a program called Ontario's Living Legacy.

Mike Harris blamed the previous NDP government for loosening water standards.

Mike Harris called a public inquiry, headed by Justice Dennis O'Connor, which later noted that in addition to Stan Koebel's failure to properly monitor and treat the water supply, deregulation of water quality testing and cuts to the Ministry of the Environment were contributing factors.

Mike Harris's government reduced Ontario welfare rolls by 500,000 people; critics contend these cuts led to a rise in homelessness and poverty.

In 2001, the Mike Harris government introduced a plan to give a tax credit for parents who send their children to private and denominational schools.

Mike Harris broke with tradition to place backbench MPPs on Cabinet committees.

Mike Harris resigned as premier and MPP on April 14,2002 and was succeeded as PC leader and premier by his long-time friend and minister of finance, Ernie Eves.

Later in 2002, Mike Harris joined the Fraser Institute, a right-of-centre libertarian think tank, as a senior fellow.

Mike Harris served on the board of directors of the Manning Centre.

In January 2003, Mike Harris was named to the board of directors of Magna International.

In 2012, Mike Harris indicated that he would step down from the board of directors at Magna International after completing a process to collapse the company's dual-class share structure that he helped begin in 2010.

In late May 2010, Nipissing University confirmed that Mike Harris would receive an honorary doctorate.

Nipissing University's $25 million Mike Harris Learning Library, which opened in 2011, is named after the former premier.

In 2012, Mike Harris started a local Nurse Next Door Home Care franchise in Toronto with wife Laura.

In May 2014, Mike Harris co-led an independent Canadian mission to observe the Ukrainian presidential election.

Today, Mike Harris serves as the Chair of the Board for Chartwell Retirement Residences.

Since joining the board, Mike Harris has been compensated roughly $3.5-million for his services.

Mike Harris made serious steps toward a career in federal politics after stepping down as Premier, weighing in on issues such as the 2003 invasion of Iraq and the value of the Canadian dollar.

Mike Harris was later involved in a minor controversy, yelling and repeatedly swearing at a party official who asked him for his identification as he voted in the 2004 Ontario Progressive Conservative Party leadership election.