SNOBELEN: Reflecting on the Common Sense Revolution three decades later
On June 8, a gaggle of old warriors will mark a rare collision of common sense and courage. It will be a quiet event, but 30 years ago, this unlikely team set the world (or at least Ontario) on fire.
It was election day on June 8, 1995, in Ontario. I spent the day watching my sister Kathie run an amazing get-out-the-vote effort that capped six weeks of campaigning with friends and neighbours. It felt good to know that, regardless of the outcome, we had collectively worked our butts off. There was nothing left in the tank.
But the outcome was not certain. At the start of that election, Lyn McLeod and the Liberals had a comfortable, double-digit lead in the polls. The taste of a 1990 defeat for the PC Party (and this rookie candidate) lingered as the hours dripped away.
Some campaigns are riskier than others. In 1995, Mike Harris and a young campaign team broke all the rules with a bold, detailed election platform called the Common Sense Revolution, released a full year before election day. On election day, voters would determine if that strategy was incredibly brave or simply naive.
Turns out it was brave. But the courage didn't end on June 8.
A few weeks later, Premier Mike Harris presented his caucus with a stark appraisal of the economic conditions facing Ontario. The facts were simple — in the year since the Common Sense Revolution platform was released, the economy of Ontario had declined, eroding the foundation of the plan.
I remember a sinking feeling that this was the moment when all the hard work over five years would begin to crumble. No plan survives first contact, and predictably, the Harris government would soften bold intentions in the face of reality.
What happened next set the tone for the Harris government. Having laid out the harsh realities, Harris told his caucus that the plan would have to adapt. We would need to be bolder and move faster.
Harris was unreasonable. Which is why, 30 years later, he remains my benchmark for courageous leadership.
Much has been written about the Harris government. A good bit of it is nonsense that became an urban myth. But, by any account, Harris impacted Ontario in meaningful ways and altered the future of the province.
One of the young revolutionaries, Alister Campbell, recently edited a collection of well-researched opinions on the long-term impact of the Harris government's policies and initiatives. The book, The Harris Legacy: Reflections On A Transformational Premier, should be required reading for anyone wishing to do the impossible.
I don't spend much time looking back. Life doesn't move in that direction. But anniversaries have a way of prompting a backward glance.
Thirty years on, it is remarkable how many of the issues left hanging at the end of the Harris government remain not only unresolved, but also unaddressed. These are recurring problems that governments either ignore or disguise.
School boards continue to be quaint relics of the single schoolroom past, forever impeding the evolution of education. Conservation authorities, a watershed management structure invented 70 years ago, continue to impede, not inform, wise land management. Red tape grows exponentially every time it is cut.
Three decades later, several things seem obvious. First, the job is never done. Second, the intersection of courage and common sense is both extremely rare and amazingly powerful.
And, finally, 30 years is too long to wait for another revolution.
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