The first act of the newly-elected Ontario Tory government of Mike Harris in 1995 was to withdraw funding from, and set for sale, 45,000 units of social housing that had been commissioned by the New Democratic Party government of Bob Rae. This Co-operative and social housing was all but ready to receive families (that means, children) in dire need of adequate housing. Instead, Harris sold off this much-needed housing to the private sector.
Thus political precedent was set for what became one of the most mean-spirited, reactionary provincial governments in Canadian history, by extension setting the stage for the equally mean-spirited likes of rabid right-wing provincial premiers like Gordon Campbell in British Columbia, John Hamm in Nova Scotia, and lest we forget, Ralph Klein in Alberta, and their devastating set of social policies.
From the failed workfare programme for mothers of infant children who — many of them escaping abusive marriages — found themselves in receipt of income assistance (a programme which also required demeaning drug and literacy testing), to the devastating reductions in funding for the province’s Environment Ministry which resulted in the tainted-water disaster in Walkerton, when it came to attacking the poor, and the interests of Ontarians, Harris’ government knew no equal in Ontario history.

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The Bitter End of The Common Sense Revolution →