Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday September 21, 2002
Ernie Eves the Davisian
May 5, 1999
Premier Ernie Eves says Ontario voters want the steady management style of former Conservative premier Bill Davis, not the hot-button politics of Mike Harris.
“I think premier Davis was one of the better premiers the province of Ontario has had,” Eves told reporters yesterday at the Tories’ two-day caucus retreat that was to end today.
“He certainly reformed the post secondary education system … he did all kinds of things.”
When Davis left politics in 1985, it marked the beginning of the end for more than 42 years of Tory rule.
Since taking over, Eves has dismantled some of the basic tenets of the Common Sense Revolution, such as the idea that tax cuts pay for themselves and that major crown corporation such as Hydro One should be sold.
Eves said he is not about to pushed into putting all his government’s plans in a 35-page document, as was the Common Sense Revolution that helped catapult Harris into power in 1995. It promised tax cuts, and getting tough on crime and welfare, among other things. (CP)