A CANADIAN POLITICIAN SINKS BELOW THE MORAL HORIZON
“Knowing what I know now,” Mike Harris said a year ago in Calgary, “I would have moved a lot faster, and a lot more aggressively, to make the changes Ontario needed to get back on track.”
Knowing what WE know now, the Ontario public would have moved a lot more aggressively to throw Harris out of power. But voters lost that chance when Harris himself smelled the winds of change and resigned with a million-dollar pension.
Harris was so consumed by the taste of Premier-Power in 1995, that he abandoned civility. He threw respect for others into the garbage can, thinking he could get away with anything.
He disgraced conservatism, although he tried to conceal his own shallow thinking beneath the cloak of respectable conservative talk. Decent conservatives can only cringe at the behaviour of a leader whose thirst for power and inflated opinion of himself, led him to ignore the needs and rights of others in favour of lining the pockets of his cronies and special friends.
He infected many who came in contact with him, including the Ontario Provincial Police, his cabinet and party colleagues and the Ontario civil service.
He loved his intimate dining room at Queens Park.
He would summon his sycophantic “yes-men” and “yes-women” to the executive eatery, where he would hold forth in the manner of an elected strong-man.
Charles Harnick, who was the Harris Attorney General, attended one such dining-room session on September 6th, 1995 to discuss the native occupation of Ipperwash Provincial Park.
Harnick has testified- under oath- at the Ipperwash Inquiry, that he heard Harris say “I want the f_ _ _ _ ing Indians out of the park.”
Senior civil servant Elaine Todres testified at the same Inquiry that the Minister of Natural Resources, Chris Hodgson said “Get the f _ _ _ _ ing Indians out of my park”.
A videotape made on the night of the police action at Ipperwash contains the following remark by an officer: “No there’s no one down there. Just a big fat-f_ _ k Indian.” Then the officer suggests using beer to bait a trap for the native protesters. “Works in the South with watermelons,” he said in a reference to black Americans. (A few hours after that an unarmed native Canadian was shot to death by an OPP officer.)
At least the OPP had the grace to apologise. The Ontario Provincial Police Association, which represents the 7,500 uniformed and civilian members of the OPP, issued this statement: “The association and its members, past and present, deeply regret both the tone and content of the remarks on this tape made by two of our members. We do not condone the remarks and we do not accept them as being representative of the views of the vast majority of men and women who are members of the OPPA,” association vice-president Ed Kinnear said in a statement.”On behalf of all our members, we are very sorry and offer our apologies for these hurtful remarks.”
Harris- showing his usual courage- not only refused to apologise, he denied making any racist remarks whatever.
Many of us who supported Mike Harris in the beginning, found much of his behaviour as Premier to be contemptible.
We now know that as a person and as a politician he was beneath contempt.
Being conservative means- among other things- being prudent, responsible, accountable, truthful, respectful and reliable.
By any yardstick, former Premier Mike Harris is not now nor ever was a true conservative.
I have to say – some of us knew Mike Harris was beneath contempt before the election.
Love you,
Sam
I’ve always wondered why anyone other than right wingers would vote for Harris; his evident lack of compassion, ignorance of basic facts most of get in your average Ontario education, made him about the worst possibe candidate for premier. Hindsight is always 20/20, eh?
Yes but sam…you were always smarter than the average Ontarian.
Unfortunately, the Harris mantra that anyone on welfare was shiftless and worthless, resonated with way to many people.
He would have moved to make changes to get Ontario back on track?
He’s the one that through Ontario OFF TRACK.
There are few people in the world I despise but Harris is definitely one of them.
Correction…meant to spell “threw” Ontario off track.