Read about Mike Harris net worth, age, wife, children, height, family, parents, salary and party as well as other information you need to know.
Introduction
Mike Harris is a Canadian retired politician who served as the 22nd premier of Ontario from 1995 to 2002 and leader of the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario (PC Party) from 1990 to 2002. During his time as party leader, he heavily nudged the Ontario PC Party to Blue Toryism, advocating for the “Common Sense Revolution”, his government’s program of deficit reduction in combination with lower taxes and budget cuts.
Harris grew up in North Bay and worked as a ski instructor and schoolteacher before becoming a school board trustee in 1974. In 1981, he became a member of the Provincial Parliament (MPP) for the riding of Nipissing. He became the leader of the Progressive Conservative Party in the 1990 leadership election. That same year, a provincial election was called in which Harris carried the PCs to a modest boost in support, though they still remained in third place. However, five years later, he led the PCs to a strong majority government in the 1995 provincial election. He later led the party to a second majority in 1999.
He emphasized the Common Sense Revolution during his tenure as premier. Although his policy of lower taxes grew the deficit, his deep cuts to social services, health care, education, and infrastructure spending were enough to eliminate the deficit and balance the budget in 1999. The Harris Government also faced the 1997 Ontario teachers’ strike and gained criticism for its handling of the Walkerton E. coli outbreak and the Ipperwash crisis. In the Spring of 2002, Harris retired from politics.
Early life
| Name | Mike Harris |
| Net Worth | $5 million |
| Occupation | Politician |
| Age | 78 years |
| Height | 1.75m |
Michael Deane Harris OOnt was born on January 23, 1945 (age 78 years) in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He is the son of Hope Gooding (born Robinson) and Sidney Deane Harris. He grew up in North Bay, where his father operated the Wasi Falls Resort fishing camp. Harris attended Waterloo Lutheran University (now Wilfrid Laurier University) but left after a year. At the age of 21, following his father’s purchase of a ski hill, Harris moved for two years to Sainte-Adèle, Quebec, where he became a ski instructor.
He was employed as an elementary school teacher at W. J. Fricker Public School in North Bay where he taught grade seven and eight mathematics for several years in a new open-concept class of 120 students. He continued in his previous occupation as a ski instructor at Nipissing Ridge on weekends as well as working at his father’s fishing camp during the summer season. He eventually left the teaching profession as the success of the ski resort escalated. After his father sold his ski-hill operation, Harris was hired to manage North Bay’s Pinewood Golf Club.
Political career
Harris was elected to public office as a school board trustee in 1974. He entered provincial politics in the 1981 election and defeated Mike Bolan, the incumbent Liberal MPP in Nipissing. Harris later suggested that he was motivated to enter politics by opposition to the policies of Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau.
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Harris sat as a backbencher in Bill Davis’s PC government from 1981 to 1985. He supported Frank Miller’s successful bid to succeed Davis as party leader in 1985 and took the role of rival candidate Dennis Timbrell to prepare Miller for the party’s all-candidate debates. Miller was sworn in as premier of Ontario on February 8, 1985, and appointed Harris as minister of natural resources.
The Tories were reduced to a minority government in the 1985 provincial election, although Harris was personally re-elected without difficulty. He kept the natural resources portfolio after the election and was also named minister of energy on May 17, 1985. The Miller government was soon defeated on a motion of no confidence by David Peterson’s Liberals and Bob Rae’s New Democratic Party (NDP).
An agreement between the Liberals and the NDP allowed a Liberal minority government to govern for two years in exchange for the implementation of certain NDP policies. This decision consigned the Tories to opposition for the first time in 42 years. Miller resigned and was replaced by Larry Grossman, who led the party to a disastrous showing in the 1987 election and announced his resignation shortly thereafter. Harris was again re-elected in Nipissing without difficulty.
On 3 May 1994, Harris unveiled his “Common Sense Revolution” platform. It called for significant spending and tax cuts, as well as the elimination of the province’s record $11 billion deficit. By the 1995 election, the governing New Democratic Party and incumbent Premier Bob Rae had become unpopular with the electorate, partly due to the state of the Ontario economy and its record debt and deficit amidst a Canada-wide recession.
Lyn McLeod’s Liberals were leading in pre-election polls and were expected to benefit from the swing in support away from the NDP, but they began losing support due to several controversial policy reversals and what was generally regarded as an uninspiring campaign. The turning point in the election is often considered to be Harris’s performance in the televised leaders’ debate.
Harris used his camera time to speak directly to the camera to convey his party’s Common Sense Revolution platform. The Rae government had previously lost much of its base in organized labor, due in part to the unpopularity of its “Social Contract” legislation in 1993 (which Harris, after some initial vacillations, eventually voted against). Harris’s opposition to Rae’s affirmative action measures helped him to capture some unionized-worker support during the election, particularly among male workers.
Although there were regional variations, many union voters shifted from the NDP to the PCs in 1995 (instead of to the Liberals as expected pre-campaign), enabling the PCs to win a number of new ridings, such as Cambridge and Oshawa, which had long supported the NDP. In addition, roughly half of the PCs seats came from the suburban belt surrounding Metro Toronto, often called the ‘905’ for its telephone area code. The PCs’ growth from 20 to 82 seats in the 130-seat legislature vaulted them from third place to a large majority government.
In late May 2010, Nipissing University confirmed that Harris would receive an honorary doctorate. In response, the Ontario Teachers’ Federation threatened to discourage, or even prevent, their members from acting as associate teachers for students in Nipissing University’s Bachelor of Education program, which requires students to complete 12 weeks of practice teaching in a classroom. Nipissing University’s $25 million Harris Learning Library, which opened in 2011, is named after the former premier.
In 2012, Harris started a local Nurse Next Door Home Care franchise in Toronto with his wife Laura. In May 2014, Harris co-led an independent Canadian mission to observe the Ukrainian presidential election. In the 2018 Ontario general election, his son Mike Harris Jr. was elected as MPP for Kitchener-Conestoga, also a member of the Progressive Conservative Party.
Today, Harris serves as the Chair of the Board for Chartwell Retirement Residences. During the COVID-19 pandemic in Canada, Chartwell and other for-profit facilities had “far worse COVID-19 outcomes than public facilities” after paying hundreds of millions to shareholders over the last decade.
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Since joining the board, Mike Harris has been compensated roughly $3.5 million for his services. After the federal Conservatives’ loss in the 2021 Canadian federal election, Harris urged the party to “unite behind” the leader, Erin O’Toole, through a column of his in the newspaper, Toronto Sun.
Wife
Mike Harris is currently married to Laura Maguire, they had their wedding in Toronto in 2005. His wife is a private person and he has two children. However, Harris has been married thrice, his first wife was Mary Alyce Coward whom he married in 1967 but later divorced. After the end of his first marriage, he enrolled at Laurentian University and North Bay Teacher’s College where he received his teaching certificate. He married his second wife Janet Harrison in 1974 which also ended in divorce. As of February 2023, Mike Harris and his wife Laura Maguire are still married.
Mike Harris net worth
How much is Mike Harris worth? Mike Harris net worth is estimated at around $5 million. His main source of income is from his primary work as a politician. Mike Harris’s salary per month and other career earnings are over $300,000 dollars annually. His remarkable achievements have earned him some luxurious lifestyles and some fancy car trips. He is one of the richest and most influential politicians in Canada. Mike Harris stands at an appealing height of 1.75m and has a good body weight which suits his personality.