Tories in Canada’s largest province received a commanding majority mandate from Ontarians on this date in 1995. Led by North Bay, Ontario’s Mike Harris, the Progressive Conservatives defeated Premier Bob Rae’s NDP government and were now free to implement their Common-Sense Revolution. It called for lower taxes, reforms in the welfare system and a focus on deficit reduction. The Harris years had begun.
Arthur Milnes is an accomplished public historian and award-winning journalist. He was research assistant on The Rt. Hon. Brian Mulroney’s best-selling Memoirs and also served as a speechwriter to then-Prime Minister Stephen Harper and as a Fellow of the Queen’s Centre for the Study of Democracy under the leadership of Tom Axworthy. A resident of Kingston, Ontario, Milnes serves as the in-house historian at the 175 year-old Frontenac Club Hotel.