In a year when the government was moving into the third year of its second mandate, observers continued to wonder if the steam had gone out of the "Common Sense Revolution." While Premier Mike Harris and his colleagues maintained their focus on education and made several legislative forays into aspects of health care, the activity seemed like care-taking and mopping up. It lacked the scope of the wholesale reform for which they had aimed in their first term. In addition, they were dogged by the memory of the Walkerton tragedy and other environmental concerns. The inquiry into the Walkerton tainted water incident concluded its hearings in August with a report expected by the end of the year or early in 2002, but other issues of air and water quality and the safety of the Ontario environment arose at various times throughout the year. A number of cabinet ministers resigned and others speculated about whether they would run in the next election. Members of the Legislature and the public were saddened by the death of popular former minister Al Palladini in March, just before the Legislature resumed sitting in April. Observers began to speculate about the possibility of Mr. Harris’ stepping down himself, to the point that in August he felt it necessary to deny he had any such intention. Something appeared to have changed by mid-October however, as the Premier then announced that he would resign his post and his seat in the Legislature before the end of the year. Four members of his cabinet and one former member emerged as candidates to replace him, with a decision to be made early in 2002.

The Legislature began the second session of the thirty-seventh Parliament on April 19 and recessed for the summer on June 27. It reconvened on September 24 and recessed again on December 14. In that time, it passed thirty-three public bills and twenty private ones. The public bills ranged in importance from laws addressing the Oak Ridges Moraine or making substantial changes to education, to laws enshrining the celebration of Portuguese and South Asian heritage. Several pieces of legislation addressed health care, including restraint minimization in hospitals and nursing homes, repeal of the act governing homes for retarded persons, brain tumour awareness, food safety and quality, and health promotion and protection. After a failed attempt in an earlier session, the government passed the long-awaited Ontarians with Disabilities Act. Critics still complained that the Act did not go far enough but acknowledged that it was an improvement on the version introduced the previous year – a version that was abandoned when it ran into heavy opposition from groups representing the disabled. Two pieces of legislation with education as their focus probably represented the main preoccupation of the government during this session however. The Stability and Excellence in Education Act and the Quality in the Classroom Act were intended to address lingering problems the government believed existed in the education field – the work-to-rule campaigns of teachers that suspended extra-curricular activities and the question of teacher testing.

The government spent much of the year reacting to events outside the Legislature, some of which required Executive, rather than Legislative, action. Perhaps the most significant occurred when terrorist attacks on New York and Washington raised concerns with security throughout North America. Some airline flights that had been in the air when the planes were flown into the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon were diverted to airports in Canada, including some in Ontario. Some Ontario residents lost friends and relatives in the attacks, and in general the people of the province expressed their sympathy and solidarity with their neighbours to the south. At the same time, there was concern that the events not be allowed to trigger attacks on residents of the province who were of Muslim and/or Arab origin. The government moved in October to outline a number of security measures it would take within its own jurisdiction as a result of the heightened awareness after the September 11 attacks. They appointed retired General (and former Conservative federal candidate) Lewis Mackenzie as an advisor to the provincial government on security matters. Critics expressed their concern that the government not overreact and endanger civil liberties of Canadians in their zeal to show solidarity with the United States. However since many matters of concern fell within federal jurisdiction, the centre of the debate was not at the provincial level.

By the time the Legislature rose in December, the government was contemplating life under a new leader and with an election likely in 2002 or (more probably) 2003. The opposition parties sensed a possible opening by reason of the government’s apparent tiredness. They must have hoped that the chance to exploit that opening would come before the new leader had an opportunity to make his or her own mark with a new agenda.

In early January, attention was directed to environmental quality by the President of Toyota Motors who gave a speech in which he warned of the potential damage to the planet of continued reliance on automobiles in their present form. The unexpected source of such a pronouncement made it news and reaction from other auto-makers was expected. It was the beginning of a year marked by numerous environmental concerns. The same day of the Toyota President’s speech, Martin Mittelstaedt claimed in the Globe and Mail that Ontario Power Generation, much of whose product still came from coal-fired generators, was planning to give preferential electricity rates to big users, mainly large firms. Also on that day (January 9) the Medical Officer of Health responsible for the Walkerton area, Dr. Murray McQuigge, testified in the Walkerton inquiry. He pointed the finger of blame at others outside his office, including especially Stan Koebel who was directly responsible for oversight of the town’s water system.

Less than a week later, Walkerton victims were reported to be seeking permission for a class action suit against those they deemed responsible for the tragedy. They were reputed to be seeking $250 million in compensation. They were critical of the province’s existing compensation offer, not least because adjusters setting the awards under that scheme would be responsible to the province’s own Attorney-General. On January 29, there were rumours of a proposed settlement with the Walkerton victims, confirmed when details were released on February 2. The proposed sum of $33 million would allow settlements of about two thousand dollars per complainant. Not surprisingly perhaps, some claimants declared themselves satisfied with the settlement while others were not at all pleased. The settlement was approved March 19 by Mr. Justice Patrick LeSage of the Ontario Superior Court. In November, an estimate of the cost of the Walkerton tragedy (apart from the lives lost) was issued. It was thought to have cost the province and municipal authorities some $155 million.

On January 22, Premier Harris had promised to revamp the province’s water systems, while musing about the possibility of private sector "partnerships" in the process. At that point, the total commitment of funds for Superbuild, the province’s allocation for infrastructure development in the broader public sector (municipalities, universities, schools and hospitals) was ten billion dollars. Estimates of the cost of bringing the province’s water facilities alone to satisfactory levels ranged from ten to forty billion dollars.

The government’s skirmishing with the City of Toronto flared up again in January, when the Premier opined publicly that the city should not raise its property tax rates. Toronto Deputy Mayor Case Ootes objected to what he called provincial interference in local government and further complained that Toronto’s fiscal shortfall was largely a result of provincial government "downloading" of responsibilities to the municipal level (while limiting municipal flexibility over property taxes). Ootes suggested that taxes would have to be raised on residential property (since the province had prevented increases on commercial property) but that he hoped to limit the increase to about three percent. In the meantime, the Premier pointed to the favourable performance of the Ontario economy, for which he took credit, citing provincial tax cuts. He noted the creation of one hundred eight-four thousand jobs in the past year. Just slightly more than two weeks after the Premier spoke, Daimler-Chrysler announced job cuts of over fifty-three hundred in its Ontario plants.

Economic issues were not the only matters on the government agenda at the beginning of the year. Several social issues also made news. On January 9 for example, the province announced it was cutting back on earlier announced plans to require drug testing of welfare recipients. Community and Social Services Minister John Baird agreed that welfare recipients would not lose their benefits if addicted to drugs, assuming that they agreed to undergo treatment for their addiction.

On the 14^th of the month, the Metropolitan Community Church in Toronto was the site of marriage ceremonies involving two same-sex couples. Consumer and Commercial Affairs Minister Bob Runciman (responsible for registration of marriages) said these marriages would not be registered. A sidelight of the event was the fact that the Governor-General, Adrienne Clarkson, had been invited to the ceremonies, presumably for political effect. She declined to attend but sent her "best wishes." That led a Canadian Alliance MP to object to her "social activism."

In other legal matters, the Ontario Court of Appeal overturned an injunction that had limited the number of picketers at a strike location. While upholding the right of persons to be granted entry to picketed sites and not to be unreasonably delayed, the court held that the number of picketers present was not a matter to be limited by injunction.

The legal community expressed some concern in mid-January that the government might begin requesting that by the Judicial Appointments Committee deliver a larger number of names from which to pick judges. The Committee had been established by Ian Scott when he was Attorney-General in the Peterson Liberal government, with the intention of reducing the role of political patronage in judicial appointments. It was suggested by some that the current government feared bias in the Committee’s selection of nominees and therefore wanted more names from which to choose. Others argued the government was hoping to reintroduce elements of patronage by requiring more names, since that would increase the chance that a supporter of the government would be included.

The government was further embattled on the partisan political front in January. On the 15^th of the month, Liberal MPP Michael Bryant alleged that a friend of the Premier – a man named Peter Minogue – had received special treatment in a land deal involving the development of a golf course and resort. Bryant cited an internal Ministry memorandum that suggested Minogue had been "lobbying at the political level" to get permission to build. From that Bryant concluded Minogue’s success might well have come as a result of his friendship with the Premier. The story received some coverage for a couple of weeks, but in the final analysis there was no clear proof of wrong-doing and the matter faded from public attention.

At the same time, several cabinet members were reassessing their futures. Al Palladini resigned from cabinet at the end of January, citing "personal reasons." Commentators suggested those reasons involved Mr. Palladini’s need to reorganize his finances following his divorce and to secure the health of his business, whose running he had entrusted to one of his sons. He retained his Legislature seat until his untimely death in March. Finance Minister Ernie Eves resigned from cabinet and from the Legislature in early February to become Vice-Chairman on Credit Suisse/First Boston of Canada. These departures led the Premier to undertake a mini-shuffle of cabinet on February 8.

Jim Flaherty moved from Attorney-General to Finance and became Deputy Premier; David Young was made Attorney-General. Tony Clement left Municipal Affairs and Housing to move into Health, while Chris Hodgson moved to Municipal Affairs and Housing and Elizabeth Witmer moved from Health to the Ministry of the Environment. Hodgson was widely identified as an up-and-comer and his appointment to the Municipal Affairs post led Globe and Mail columnist John Ibbitson to conclude that the Premier was signaling a serious intent to reform municipal planning and infrastructure. Janet Ecker remained in Education but took on the additional responsibility of Government House Leader. When Mr. Harris stepped down in October, these five Ministers – Flaherty, Clement, Hodgson, Witmer and Ecker – were widely considered to be the pool of possible replacements. Surprisingly for some observers, Chris Hodgson did not become a candidate and subsequently announced his intention to retire from politics. Three of the other four did contest the leadership, together with Labour Minister and former House Speaker Chris Stockwell, and – returning from the banking world – Ernie Eves. When Mr. Eves declared, Janet Ecker opted to support him and not be a candidate herself.

On March 15 the Globe and Mail reported a Globe and Mail/Ipsos Reid poll, conducted between February 6 and 19 that showed the Liberals leading in popular support with fifty-one percent of decided voters, the Conservatives at thirty-one percent, and the NDP at fifteen.

Much of the government’s concern in this run-up to the Legislative session remained focused on education. On January 22, the government announced the creation of an Education Task Force to be chaired by Ann Vanstone, a former Chair of the Toronto School Board who had served as co-Chair of the province’s Education Improvement Commission with former NDP Education Minister Dave Cooke. The new task force was to look into merit pay for teachers, performance incentives for schools, and report cards on schools to be sent to parents. They were to hold public hearings and report in June. The task force’s mandate seemed to derive from the government’s belief that most of the problems in the schools could be solved through greater accountability. Critics saw the move as leading to more criticism of teachers and schools, and therefore a further deterioration in relations between the government and front-line educational professionals.

In early March, the Supreme Court of Canada upheld the provincial law that had taken taxing authority away from local school boards. It had been challenged by Catholic school board members in particular who cited what they believed were constitutional grounds for preserving at least their boards’ authority over taxing. The Ontario Appeal Court had agreed, but the Supreme Court concluded that the government had acted within its constitutional rights.

On the same day, results were announced for the first of the Grade X literacy tests the government had introduced. Teachers and school boards were quick to point out that students were aware that this set of results would not "count" as this was a trial year for the test. It was assumed therefore that many students would not take the exercise very seriously until the results had real consequences for their progress and graduation. The best results on the test were found in the wealthier suburbs of Toronto and the worst in the District of Rainy River in far northwestern Ontario. Throughout the province, virtually no provision seemed to have been made to accommodate students with special needs. Nothing in the results stilled the continuing debate about the value of such testing, but the province reiterated its commitment to continuing the process. A few days later, the government also reaffirmed their commitment to mandatory testing of teachers and forced re-certification at five-year intervals. Then after the Legislature had reconvened, the Premier mused about the prospect of extending standardized testing to all grade levels – something officials in the Ministry had not called for.

High school teachers in several parts of the province had been refusing to supervise extra-curricular activities, arguing that such supervision was extra work not required or compensated in their contracts. So long as the province was requiring additional in-class time, they refused to volunteer, as they had in the past, for extra-curricular duties. In March, Education Minister Janet Ecker claimed that some teachers wanted to provide extra-curricular supervision but were being "intimidated" by their union and active union supporters. Ontario Secondary School Teachers Federation President Earl Manners denied such claims and noted that a Task Force on extra-curricular activities had reported some three weeks previously but that the report had not been made public. Suspecting it might be more supportive of the teachers than of the government, he asked, "Where is it?" In April, the contents of the report became clear when Minister Ecker rejected the advice of her hand-picked advisory committee. The group had recommended the Ministry, Boards and teachers should work together to define whether and in what circumstances teachers should be required to run extra-curricular activities. Further they had recommended that teachers get on-load credit for extra-curricular work – a scheme that would be made possible by a class-size increase of one to two students per class. The Minister rejected those recommendations.

In the meantime, support staff in Toronto’s public schools had been without a contract since August 31 of 2000. On April 2, CUPE Local 4400, representing 13,000 non-teaching employees of the Toronto District School Board went on strike. After a little more than a week, the parties returned to the bargaining table, with the School Board proposing arbitration.

In the midst of bargaining, the province announced its funding formula for the fiscal year. They announced a 2.4 percent increase over the previous year, of which one percent was to account for additional enrolment. Toronto teachers had just settled for a wage increase of four percent per annum for two years, and the support staff were seeking a comparable amount. Toronto Board Chair Liz Sandals was quoted in the Globe and Mail on April 13 as saying the Board faced an unavoidable increase in costs of at least three percent plus an enrolment increase of one percent. In the same story, Annie Kidder, one of the founders of the People for Education interest group, pointed out that inflation (independent of enrolment increases) was running at 2.9% (a figure confirmed a month later in the government’s own Budget presentation).

By the third week of the strike, the schools (which had remained open) were in bad shape with respect to cleanliness and maintenance. There was suspicion in some schools that students had caused damage and spread garbage around to support the striking workers. Skeptics countered that high school students might easily have done some of these things as a prank or in frustration, unrelated to a position on the strike. By April 20, the School Board was announcing that it would close the schools on April 23 if there was no settlement by that point. On April 27, the government moved to legislate the support staff back to work, with provisions for arbitration of outstanding issues (including wages).

In the area of health care, the new Minister Tony Clement signaled in mid-March his preparedness to use private firms to provide medically necessary health care. Up to that point, most of the discussion of private provision had been for elective procedures or non-essential diagnostic testing. The applicability of the Canada Health Act to medically necessary treatment led Ottawa to declare its intention to watch Ontario’s actions on this issue very closely.

In March, Barb Wahl, President of the Ontario Nurses Association, reacted to the Premier’s stated plan to enroll eighty percent of Ontario primary care physicians in a Family Health Network. Such a scheme could not work, she said, unless nurses were also involved. The primary care reform plan seemed stalled in any case, as only around ten percent of primary care doctors had signed on to the Family Health Network.

On April 20, Premier Harris called for a major re-thinking of the national health care system. Presumably he was targeting the federal government’s management and funding of the system – a system to which he argued his government was making a disproportionately large contribution. However on April 24, the Canadian Auto Workers released a study by one of their researchers, Bill Murningham, who argued health care spending per capita had declined in Ontario, and that the decline in health care staff would mean there would be still fewer workers to serve a growing (and aging) population.

With respect to the environment, the government announced in late March that the OPG’s Lakeview electricity generating plant would be banned from burning coal after 2005 and that other plants would face restrictions on their emissions. In April, the Ontario Clean Air Alliance identified another coal-fired plant – the Nanticoke generating station – as the worst source of air pollution in Canada.

With a focus on the earth rather than the air, a man named Wilfred Pearson filed a $750 million class action suit against INCO in late March over soil contamination from its refining plant at Port Colborne. The suit as filed also cited the Niagara Region government and the local public and separate school boards. Mr. Pearson indicated he intended to add the provincial Ministry of the Environment to the list.

On a "good news" note, it was announced in mid-March that the three levels of government had achieved agreement on a plan to manage the watershed of the Rouge River – a central part of the Oak Ridges Moraine. The plan had become possible when the federal government agreed to commit the land it had amassed as part of its now abandoned plans for a Pickering airport.

At the end of March, Premier Harris announced a package of ninety million dollars in aid for Ontario grain farmers, as a result of drought-related crop losses. At the same time he announced $98.6 million for municipalities. About half of that amount was allocated to the Greater Toronto Area to help pay for the cost of transferring social housing to local government responsibility. Shirley Hoy, the Toronto Commissioner for Community and Social Services, was quoted by the Globe and Mail’s James Rusk as saying only about eighteen million dollars of the amount promised was actually new money. The city and the province continued negotiating over aid. The city claimed to have made about one hundred and forty million dollars worth of spending cuts. However city negotiators claimed they would need an additional one hundred ten million dollars to keep tax increases as low as five percent for residential taxpayers.

A week before, the new Finance Minister, Jim Flaherty, had indicated the Budget he would bring down when the Legislature reconvened would include further tax cuts and would seek to put caps on public sector salaries. The squeeze on the public sector was reiterated by the Premier two days before the Legislature session began, as Richard Mackie of the Globe and Mail queried him about the forthcoming Throne Speech. Mr. Harris called for more efficiency and accountability from the public sector; he announced plans to promise privatization and the sale of more public assets, and pressure on doctors and hospitals to curb health care costs. The Throne Speech, he said, would be shorter and more specific and would be followed in the next few days by detailed announcements of specific measures. The prospect of slower growth, the Premier said, meant lower revenue, and lower revenue, combined with balanced budget legislation, required spending cuts. However further tax cuts were still planned – cuts in income taxes, but not in consumption taxes. When the Throne Speech was delivered on April 19, it was as predicted. Critics objected to the use of spending cuts together with tax cuts, and they expressed their fears that the government’s agenda included two-tiered health care.

When Lieutenant Governor Hilary Weston read the Speech from the Throne on April 19, the text reflected the priorities the Premier had foreshadowed in his statements prior to the opening of the Legislature. After some praise for the economic and employment growth of the period since the Harris government came to office, there was a nod to the challenges faced by government in the era of globalization. In addition the high and growing cost of health care was noted and the need for "responsible choices and tough decisions" asserted. In addition to growth, the government stated its priorities as fiscal responsibility and accountability. Nevertheless, these latter goals were asserted to include (if not indeed depend on) competitive tax cuts and reduced regulation. The "specifics" promised by the Premier tended to be rather general when they appeared – cutting taxes, assessing proposed regulation in terms of its impact on employment and growth, and further cutting the size and scope of government. This last aim would include the sale of some (as yet unspecified) government assets. Debatable planning techniques – sunset clauses and zero-base budgeting – were resuscitated for this session, and the government indicated an intention to keep funds from being "diverted to lobbying and advocacy." After nearly six years in office, the government was still promising to streamline its operations and seek greater efficiency, but now it added a commitment to the expansion of "electronic government." The latter commitment was paired (ironically, some would say) with a promise of "continued improvement in customer service." Regional economic development, public service accountability and "smart growth" were also promised, along with a series of education-centred proposals related to parent and local school flexibility. In this area, the Speech gave an example of allowing principals to "choose phonics texts to teach reading," perhaps suggesting the government had come down firmly on one side of the long-standing debate about how best to teach reading. It also implicitly ignored the fact that most Ontario public schools already used a combination of phonics and whole-language techniques, rather than opting exclusively for one or the other. Health care, the environment, law and order, and aid to persons with disabilities rounded out the list of proposals, culminating in "parliamentary reform ... [to] enhance the role and responsibilities of MPPs." The Speech cast the proposals as "21 steps into the 21^st Century."

Between the opening of the Legislature and the presentation of the Budget, the Education Minister, Janet Ecker, moved (on May 7) to bring an end to the stalemate with high school teachers about extra-curricular activities. She accepted some of the recommendations that she had earlier rejected from her task force. The definition of instructional time was broadened somewhat to include some extra-curricular activity within the work for which teachers were clearly paid. She also provided an extra $50 million to allow school boards to increase class sizes by one to an average of twenty-two, thereby freeing up some teacher time for the redefined instructional work. The compromise was well-regarded by most teachers, parents and students, though some wondered if it could not have been achieved at an earlier date.

On May 9, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty brought down his first Budget. It continued the promise of a balanced budget (now required by law) and it highlighted a continuation of tax reductions – in corporate taxes steadily to 2005, and in personal income taxes, with small cuts in fiscal 2001 and more to follow later. Slower economic growth was predicted for 2001, with the hope of an upturn in 2002. Unemployment, inflation and government revenue were all predicted to be fairly stable, and in every case, a more optimistic scenario was presented for 2002. More money was promised for schools and health care, and one public asset was marked for sale – the Province of Ontario Savings Office, a small public near-bank, valued by a declining number of depositors and arguably an easy case for privatization. Perhaps the most controversial element of the Budget came in the form of a tax credit of up to $3500 for parents of children in private schools. The Throne Speech’s attention to choice and flexibility in education had not been seen as leading in this direction, though for many years there had been considerable lobbying for such aid, especially from supporters of religiously grounded schools. The existence of public funding for one community’s schools (the Roman Catholic system) had long been described as discriminatory by other communities not so favoured. The proposal from the Harris government was seen as a nod in the direction of reducing such discrimination; however critics noted that the credit applied as well to private schools without religious foundation and to parents with considerable financial resources of their own. The money to sustain the tax credit would come, it was feared, from funds that would otherwise support the public system. Moreover, some critics complained, the credits had a partisan intent – to strengthen Conservative support in fundamentalist Protestant communities and reduce Liberal and NDP support among Jewish voters. Not everyone who would benefit was uniformly supportive of course. When the government proceeded with the legislation in late May to give effect to the credits, Richard Mackie in the Globe and Mail quoted Tarek Fatah, the host of Muslim Chronicle on CTS TV: "The Harris government tax credit will primarily benefit the wealthy. But the religious communities, especially the Muslim community, are being used to market the proposal."

Coincident with the Budget presentation, the government introduced its new accountability act. Facing the Walkerton inquiry, and the threat of suit from the family of Dudley George to force a public inquiry into the Ipperwash incident, as well as allegations about the poor health of the Ontario environment, the government could understandably have been concerned with public officials’ being called to account. Their focus on accountability however was restricted largely to financial matters and centred on the broader public sector. Municipalities, universities, schools, and hospitals would now be required to meet certain performance tests and to produce balanced budgets. Critics complained that the "accountability" favoured by the Harris government did not seem to extend to members of cabinet or advisors to the Premier. A further disconnect between government’s own accountability and that of its broader public sector "partners" was seen in June, when the government indicated school boards would be expected to sign three-year contracts with teachers and other staff, presumably to encourage labour relations stability, while the province would not commit to education funding for more than one year at a time.

The "upside" of performance measures was seen near the end of May when the government announced approximately $120 million would be made available to hospitals in the form of performance bonuses. However the Ontario Hospital Association noted the hospitals would be facing a shortfall in funds of roughly $650 million even after these "efficiency" bonuses were received.

Regarding the environment, the government moved on May 17 to short-circuit a process underway before the Ontario Municipal Board by freezing development on the Oak Ridges Moraine for six months to allow further study of the issues. A year earlier, when such a moratorium had been proposed, then Municipal Affair Minister Tony Clement had ruled out a freeze as unhelpful. The new Minister, Chris Hodgson, introduced the freeze, saying it would give government time to review its policies. Later, on June 12, the government appointed former Deputy Minister of Natural Resources, Ron Vrancart, to advise on ways to preserve the Moraine.

Environment news was not so favourable in July, when the environmental watchdog for NAFTA – the Montreal-based Commission for Environmental Cooperation – identified Ontario as the fifth worst polluting jurisdiction in North America, behind only Ohio, Texas, Michigan and Indiana. The Commission considered only industrial and utility sources of pollution, not individuals. The two worst sites found in Ontario were the Nanticoke coal-fired electricity-generating plant, owned by Ontario Power Generation, and the Copper Cliff smelter of the International Nickel Company (INCO).

In mid-June of 2000, the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty had been involved in a violent confrontation on the grounds of the Legislature at Queen’s Park. In June 2001, OCAP was involved in an incident at the constituency offices of Finance Minister Jim Flaherty. Complaining of the cruelty with which they suggested poor tenants were being evicted and in some cases rendered homeless, members of OCAP undertook to stage an "office eviction" at Flaherty’s riding office. They entered the office and began to move filing cabinets, desks and chairs out to the sidewalk. A confrontation ensued and police were called in. Two members of OCAP were charged at the scene, and eleven more were charged when police pursued and stopped a bus that the group had chartered, as it was leaving the area. OCAP supporters claimed these arrests signaled the greater importance of property over people in the minds of the authorities, while critics of the group wondered at their tactics and asserted that such confrontation diminished, rather than strengthened, support for the needs of the poor. Many OCAP supporters took the position that less confrontational tactics had been largely ineffective.

When the Legislature recessed in June, the government had introduced a significant proportion of its legislative agenda and had passed some of its top priority measures. Confrontations remained in the area of public education however, and the Walkerton inquiry was just beginning to reach its peak.

The by-election to replace the late Al Palladini in the riding of Vaughan-King-Aurora was held June 28 and the seat went to the Liberals. Greg Sorbara, a cabinet minister in the Peterson government, and more recently President of the Ontario Liberal Party, was the successful Liberal standard-bearer. The change from Conservative to Liberal highlighted the potential volatility of ridings in the "905" area surrounding Toronto, especially when high-profile candidates could be induced to run.

On July 26, Frank Klees (who had briefly been a candidate for the leadership of the Canadian Alliance) resigned his post as Chief Government Whip and Minister Without Portfolio in the Harris cabinet, for "personal reasons," effective July 31. Another by-election possibility was not created however, since he indicated he would remain as the MPP for Oak Ridges, at least until the next election.

The summer recess provided a chance, as in past years, for inter-provincial conferences, usually with an eye on pressuring the federal government to provide improved resources for provincial programs. At the conference of Premiers in Victoria, B.C. in August, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty supported his Premier’s call for better treatment by Ottawa. The federal government rejected the provinces’ demands for some $10 billion in additional transfers, mainly for health care. Richard Mackie, in the Globe and Mail, quoted Flaherty’s complaint that the federal government enjoyed access to tax resources out of all proportion to the government services it provided. This argument echoed the views of Alberta and other wealthy provinces calling for greater autonomy and tax room in areas of provincial jurisdiction, where the federal government had employed its spending power to direct provincial activity. Smaller, less well-off provinces, with weaker tax bases, were less interested in autonomy if it meant a diminution in resources provided from the national government.

On August 3, an Ontario court upheld the constitutionality of the province’s Safe Streets Act – the law that had banned so-called "squeegee kids" from offering (for a fee) to clean the windshields of motorists stopped at an intersection. The Court ruled that the protection of free speech cited by the defendants was subject to "reasonable limits prescribed by law" under Section 1 of the Charter, and the limits imposed by the Ontario law were "reasonable." The Court however elected to suspend the fines levied on the defendants because of the Crown’s delay in bringing their cases to trial.

On August 13, the province’s Task Force on Effective Schools reported. The Task Force proposed a sum of $50 million per annum be used to fund an agency that would monitor an accreditation system for school boards. They also recommended extra professional development for teachers, lower class sizes in the primary grades, and new province-wide science tests in Grades four and eight. They also proposed that money be provided for exemplary teachers – not as merit compensation, but for upgrading training and sharing insights with colleagues. These recommendations served to highlight the unease of many teachers with the provincial requirement that they take fourteen courses over five years to maintain certification. Phyllis Benedict, president of the union representing elementary school teachers, urged teachers to ignore the requirement, while Education Minister Janet Ecker threatened that those who flouted the requirement could be fired. Relations between teachers and the government remained uneasy.

On August 14, Kimberly Rogers, a young woman under house arrest for breach of the welfare regulations, and eight months pregnant, died of an overdose of medication. She had been confined to her house (with strictly limited opportunities to leave); the house had no air conditioning and the province was experiencing a powerful heat wave. It was observed by commentators that Ms Rogers’ offence had been to collect welfare while attending school – an action that had been legal prior to the Conservatives’ coming to office, and one that could reasonably be said to make it easier for her to get off the welfare rolls. She was reported to have been frustrated and depressed by her conviction and worried about her pregnancy. Speculation thus arose about the extent to which her overdose might have been intentional, rather than purely accidental. In any case, the government’s strict policy on welfare fraud, its reduction of welfare rates, its work-for-welfare requirement, and in general its targeting of welfare recipients for campaign attacks led many critics of the government to blame them for Kimberly Rogers’ death. It was anticipated that many of these issues would be discussed in the context of an inquest ordered in the case.

On the same day Ms Rogers’ death was announced, the Premier had been asked about his future plans and denied that he had any intention of stepping down. A Léger Marketing cross-country poll on Premiers, reported on August 17, found that over seventy percent of Canadians had an opinion on Mr. Harris and that it was divided roughly four to three in his favour. In Ontario however, ninety percent of respondents had an opinion on Mr. Harris and forty-nine percent had a bad opinion, only forty-one percent a good one.

The Walkerton Inquiry ended on August 17 and Mr. Justice Dennis O’Connor began to deliberate on the testimony. Some clearly responsible persons had emerged – notably Stan Koebel who had allegedly been negligent in his handling of water-testing. However there remained considerable controversy about the liability of the provincial government for a water treatment and testing system that had clearly failed, with fatal consequences, and for an agricultural system in which manure run-off had made its way into a town’s drinking water supply. Supporters and critics of the government alike awaited Mr. Justice O’Connor’s findings.

On August 27, the Integrity Commissioner (who had been assigned responsibility for the salaries of MPPs) reported his recommendation that members of the Legislature receive a three percent per annum raise until the next election, but that following the election they receive a twenty-five percent "catch-up" increment. There was the usual negative commentary from those who believed MPPs were already very well paid, and who contrasted their own salary increases with those proposed for the legislators. On the other hand, and perhaps with a touch of irony, Leah Casselmann of the Ontario Public Service Employees Union welcomed the raises, saying it strengthened the bargaining position of her members when they went into negotiations with the government.

As the summer drew to a close, the by-election in Beaches-Woodbine (to replace Frances Lankin who had left to head the Toronto United Way) was held, and the NDP retained the seat, despite a strong challenge from the Liberals. City Councillor Michael Prue took the seat over environmentalist and Greenpeace founder Bob Hunter, the Liberal candidate. The campaign was marred by allegations of unfair tactics, levied by the Liberals against the NDP. The New Democrats had apparently publicized to the press a novel written by Mr. Hunter in which scenes of sex with teenage prostitutes in Thailand are described by the first-person narrator. The NDP stopped just short of asking whether the novel reported Mr. Hunter’s actual experiences (which he vehemently denied) and simply purported to be concerned whether someone who could write such a novel would make a good MPP. There was little or no evidence to say whether the revelation had any significant impact on the campaign, but in a tight two-way race even a slight effect could make a difference. Conservative candidate Mac Penney finished a distant third.

The fall sitting began with a series of unrelated legislative ventures. The government introduced legislation to levy fines on school boards if they failed to report to the College of Teachers any teachers accused of sexual abuse of students. There had been one or two high-profile cases over the years, in Ontario and elsewhere, of high school teachers who had begun sexual relationships with students. However there was no evidence that teacher sexual abuse of students was widespread or commonly unreported. Nevertheless the matter was viewed so seriously by parents that the legislation was likely to be popular.

The province moved early in the sitting to take control of GO Transit, which it had earlier shifted to municipal responsibility. This change was preliminary to an announcement the next day that the province would commit some three billion dollars to public transit over a ten-year period. Approximately a month later, in re-announcing the commitment, Minister Hodgson challenged the federal government to match those funds. However despite the offer of municipalities to contribute, and despite their joining the call on the federal authorities, no such federal commitment was immediately forthcoming. In conjunction with these measures, the province scrapped the Greater Toronto Area coordinating body it had created when the municipalities of Metro Toronto were amalgamated into a single city. At the same time they promised to establish five "smart growth" panels across the province, presumably to plan and oversee implementation of urban development.

About this time, Feedback Research Corporation reported the results of a poll conducted in the so-called "905" region. The poll found support for the Conservatives was only forty percent, while the Liberals had risen to forty-eight percent (and the NDP held four percent). The Liberals were heartened by the promise of a breakthrough in the area of Conservative suburban strength, however observers noted that the margin of error in the poll was four percentage points, so that the two leading parties could have been neck-and-neck in actual support.

On October 1, the Premier announced Ontario’s responses to the events of September 11. First he noted the risk of economic downturn, from the shock to consumer and investor confidence, which such an event could engender. Later in the month, the Conference Board made its own prediction to that effect. Harris’ proposed remedy was an acceleration of promised tax cuts – in personal, corporate and capital taxes – which would now be introduced three months earlier than planned. Second, he called for a common North American security perimeter (as the US government was proposing, and polls suggested had wide support), but this proposal fell largely within federal jurisdiction. Similarly, the Premier promised a special Ontario Provincial Police task force to track illegal immigrants (though most of the terrorists involved in the September 11 attacks had held legal visas in the United States). While this was a matter of federal jurisdiction, it was clearly within the purview of provincial police to enforce federal law, and the federal government signaled its support. However critics observed that the OPP had pulled out of a joint federal-provincial task force on illegal immigrants in the mid-1990s.

Continuing their activity in the area of education, but extending into the post-secondary realm, the government announced October 3 that they would be creating a new Ontario Institute of Technology adjacent to Durham College of Applied Arts and Technology. The aim would be to combine College and University courses in a curriculum with a focus on the job market. Later styled the University of Ontario Institute of Technology, the institution intended to promote easy transition from the Durham CAAT and to be prepared in short order to offer university degrees in areas where employment demand was deemed to be high. The administrations of existing universities were critical of the assumption that their graduates were not fulfilling labour demands and nervous about the prospect that public funds they needed would be diverted to the new institution.

On October 16, Premier Harris announced his intention to resign. Despite his statement a week later that he was not interested in succeeding the Premier, Ernie Eves eventually joined the race, along with Tony Clement, Jim Flaherty, Chris Stockwell and Elizabeth Witmer. The Legislature proceeded with several items on its agenda – reform of municipal government, protection of the Oak Ridges Moraine, further caps on pollution, and the Ontarians with Disabilities Act – but much attention was on the question of leadership succession and its potential effect on the Conservatives’ electoral fortunes.

In early November, the Finance Minister introduced a "fiscal update" in the Legislature, including a promise to issue cheques of $100 to the poorest families in the province – a sort of tax rebate for those too poor to pay taxes. Towards the end of the month, the Provincial Auditor issued his annual report.

The Provincial Auditor made over a hundred recommendations for improvements in administrative and accounting procedures. Among the more significant findings from a political standpoint was the assertion that deficiencies in food safety found by inspectors from the Ministry of Food and Agriculture were not corrected in a timely fashion. In the wake of Walkerton, problems with food safety could have become a major embarrassment. The Health Ministry was criticized for insufficient aggressiveness in assuring the province was getting good prices on drugs and assistive devices it purchased, and the Ministry of the Attorney-General was noted as having been able to issue only half as many legal aid certificates as they had a decade before with the same level of funding. One of the most interesting findings, in light of the controversy over the realignment of provincial and municipal responsibilities, was the assertion before the Public Accounts Committee that the Finance Ministry did not have "empirical or analytical support for the savings targets imposed on municipalities" as a result of the realignment. Some cities and towns thus found themselves with windfalls, while others were scrambling for funds to meet their needs. Perhaps the most disturbing assertion was the Auditor’s claim that for the first time since he came into office, he had found a Ministry’s staff impeding the work of his own staff in conducting their audits. The Ministry of Transportation was singled out for denying the Auditor’s staff access to files, destroying data, and obstructing the Auditor in defiance of the Audit Act. In testimony before the Public Accounts Committee, the Auditor asserted that the Transportation Ministry had "mismanaged millions of dollars" worth of consulting contracts. By the time of the report however, a new Minister and new Deputy Minister were in place.

Just before the Legislature rose for the Christmas break, the Premier announced the government’s intention to sell Hydro One – the part of the former Ontario Hydro responsible for transmission of power to local utilities. About a week later, the date for opening the deregulated energy market in the spring was announced, though eventually it would turn out to be further delayed.

The Premier made his farewell speech in the House on December 13. The leader who had brought his party from third place in the Legislature to two consecutive majority governments was stepping down, and the debates about his policy agenda that had captured so much of observers’ attention were transformed into questions about his legacy. His supporters credited him with transforming the conventional wisdom of Ontario politics in a neo-liberal direction. His detractors did not dispute that conclusion but they were likely to see it not as a positive change but as a dismantling of the progress of nearly fifty years and a reliance on the politics of division that had weakened the province’s sense of community. The leadership contest – though fought entirely among ministers or former ministers of the Harris government – began to reflect some of these differences, with Mr. Flaherty (and to some extent, Mr. Clement) representing those who believed the Common Sense Revolution had not yet gone far enough, and Mr. Eves (and to some extent, Mr. Stockwell and Ms Witmer) aiming to consolidate (and in some cases reverse) actions of the government they had served.

The province lost a number of political figures in 2001, including sitting member of the Legislature, Al Palladini, who passed away in March, as well as former Liberal cabinet minister John Sweeney, former Lieutenant-Governor Pauline McGibbon, prominent lawyer and jurist G. Arthur Martin, and former evangelist, journalist and Liberal leadership candidate Charles Templeton. Sports journalist Jim Coleman died in January and the head of the Canadian Olympic Association, Carol Ann Letheren in February. The world of the arts and entertainment was particularly hard hit, with the loss of opera star Victor Braun and actor Al Waxman in January, musician Moe Koffman in March, actor Ernie Coombs (CBC’s "Mr. Dressup") in September, and photographer Malak Karsh (brother of the somewhat better known Yousuf) in November. Other well-known Ontario residents to pass away in 2001 included Yvonne Dionne, the third of the famous quintuplets to die, and Denis Whitaker, DSO, World War II war hero, former CEO of O’Keefe Breweries and co-author with his wife of four books on Canadian war history.