Common Sense Revolution - 1995 Election and Its Impact

1995 Election and Its Impact

See also: Ontario general election, 1995 and Mike Harris#Common Sense Revolution

When Bob Rae 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.