David Frum: Mike Harris was a very Canadian revolutionary – National Post
Apr 08, 2024
Harris’ common sense revolution reminds us that conservatism can be sensible, practical and decent and still be energizing and exciting
There is something very Canadian about the phrase “Common Sense Revolution” (CSR). Like such previous Canadian concepts as “progressive conservatism” and “conscription if necessary, but not necessarily conscription,” the phrase promises to unify opposites in search of a pragmatic balance. To outsiders, it can all seem very illogical. And yet, Canadians somehow make their unusual combinations work.
The CSR was built around a man as typically Canadian as the movement itself. Undramatic, self-effacing, self-controlled, Mike Harris presented himself as the kind of neighbour a homeowner would trust with the house keys. On the night of his election as premier of Ontario in 1995, he joked: “I can’t imagine why anybody would want this job,” as if it had somehow fallen upon him by accident.
Yet beneath the genial exterior was the steel will of a man who had to relearn to walk at age 35, after he was confined to a wheelchair by a crippling neurological disorder. It would not have been Harris’ way to make the comparison, but in his own physical recovery he might have found a parallel to the political task that confronted his new government.
