Editing Common Sense Revolution (section)

==1995 Ontario general election and its impact==
{{See also|1995 Ontario general election|Mike Harris#Common Sense Revolution}}
When [[Bob Rae]] called the 1995 general election in Ontario, most political commentators were sure that Liberal leader [[Lyn McLeod]] would end up taking the premier's job. However, this prediction proved rather premature.

Sticking to the contents of the CSR, Harris fought a campaign focused on simple, easily communicated messages. Specifically, he consistently delivered the party's promises to lower taxes and reduce the number of people on Ontario's social assistance program. The turning point in the election is often considered to be Harris' performance in the televised leader's debate. Rather than get caught up in the debate between McLeod and Rae, Harris used his camera time to speak directly to the camera to convey CSR points, virtually ignoring all questions asked of him by his opponents. Another major contributing factor was a focussed advertising campaign which stuck to 3 key policy elements - "Work for Welfare, Scrap the Quota Law (Affirmative Action) and Tax Cuts for Jobs&nbsp;— Common Sense for a Change".  Harris and the PCs won a majority government in the election, winning 82 of the province's 130 seats.

Harris was committed to implementing the CSR platform almost in its entirety.  Over several years, income taxes were cut as much as 30%.  Spending cuts in "low priority areas" reduced government spending in all areas except for health care, where government spending rose each year the PCs were in office (from $17.6B in 1994/95 to $27.6B in 2003/04). Welfare reforms (including reductions in welfare payments to 'able-bodied citizens' through the division of the former Welfare program into the Ontario Disability Support Program and the Workfare program, which required able-bodied citizens to work for support) contributed to a reduction of welfare consumption in Ontario. With economic growth in North America generally strong, Ontario over the next five years outperformed every Canadian province except Alberta. This growth allowed Harris to eliminate briefly the $11 billion annual deficit he had inherited from previous Premiers David Peterson and Bob Rae. Although the provincial budget was indeed balanced for the last several years of Harris's own time in office, his successor and former deputy Ernie Eves left office with a $5 billion deficit.<ref>Ontario 2004 Budget Papers p69 Table A1 {{cite web |url=http://www.fin.gov.on.ca/english/budget/ontariobudgets/2004/papers_all.html |title=Ontario Budget 2004 : Complete Budget Papers |access-date=2009-03-08 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://archive.today/20120802145647/http://www.fin.gov.on.ca/english/budget/ontariobudgets/2004/papers_all.html |archive-date=2012-08-02 }}</ref>