Dick Harris - 37th Parliament

37th Parliament

Thou shalt not criticize the party. Thou shalt not criticize the national executive, or the president of the national executive, or any of your colleagues in caucus, or any of the caucus officers. Those are the rules. In public, that's the measure. If people stay within those rules, then they are going to be playing golf with the whip instead of having to sit down and explain themselves. Dick Harris, as the party whip, to the Canadian Alliance caucus, April 2001

In the November 2000 election Harris, as a member of the Canadian Alliance, was again re-elected in the Prince George–Bulkley Valley riding, this time with 59% of the vote. The Canadian Alliance again formed the Official Opposition to the Liberal Party's majority government. In the first session of the 37th Parliament, Harris served as a vice-chair of the 'Standing Committee on Finance', and a member of the 'Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs', the 'Standing Joint Committee on Official Languages', and the 'Standing Joint Committee for the Scrutiny of Regulations'. Fellow Canadian Alliance were criticizing the performance of their leader, Stockwell Day, during the election. In response, Day shuffled the responsibilities of his MPs in April 2001, demoting Opposition House Leader Chuck Strahl and promoting Harris to Chief Opposition Whip. Day and Harris took aggressive stances by forbidding public criticism. Art Hanger immediately spoke out against them to the media and was subsequently removed from caucus. On May 16, several Day loyalist, including Harris, co-signed a letter directed at the remaining caucus members acknowledging rumours of a parallel caucus being formed but that could not be "tolerated". The letter re-stated the formal responsibilities that all Canadian Alliance MPs agreed to and that "members will be breaching their formal written word, given to the leader, the party and their constituency, as a condition of their nomination" if they were found to "publicly attack any other colleague, the leader or the party". Hanger was followed by Chuck Strahl, Gary Lunn, Jim Pankiw, Val Meredith, Grant McNally, Jay Hill and Jim Gouk who all publicly criticized Day and withdrew or were removed from the Canadian Alliance caucus. Five more members left in June and July, including Deborah Grey. Grey accused Harris of seizing her computer and reviewing her files without her knowledge. Speaker of the House Peter Milliken investigated and ruled that Grey's "rights had been violated". In September, the dissident Canadian Alliance members formed a parallel caucus called the Democratic Representative Caucus and Day eventually conceded to a formal leadership review. Harris resigned as whip in January 2002 in order to campaign for Day's re-election as party leader. Stephen Harper won the leadership contest in April 2002 with 55% of the party votes. Under Harper, Harris remained the assistant critic on finance and he served on the 'Standing Committee on Finance' which he was a vice-chair in the 2nd session and a member in the 3rd session. Harper led the merger of the Canadian Alliance with Progressive Conservative Party to form the Conservative Party of Canada which Harris joined.