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Ever since they were elected, Mike Harris and his friends have irked me something fierce. Occasionally, like when the riot police have shown up, the whole business has even scared me. I just can't bring myself to like the Tories. Their agenda is based on a cynicism and opportunism that is simply disgusting.

Tory supporters have all kinds of reasons why they think Mike Harris is great. I'll list a few here, and add my comments:

The Tories were democratically elected

Mike Harris thinks a majority in the legislature is a carte blanche allowing the government to do whatever it wants. True democracy is about more than just elections. People should have access to their government at all times and be allowed some kind of input when it comes to government decisions. The Tories, though, have consistently ignored public opinion (remember that megacity referendum?) and flouted the democratic traditions of the parliamentary system. Besides, if you can't criticize a government because it was democratically elected, I think you're missing the whole point of democracy.

They lowered taxes

Name a place with no taxes -- the old Soviet Union comes to mind. Now that place had a great government! Sarcasm aside, lowering taxes in itself isn't such an achievement. What about the effects of this exercise? Budgets for social services have been slashed all over the place. Many people have been hit with big increases in property taxes as municipalities try to make ends meet. The income tax cut isn't even fair. It has been shown that more than half of the tax savings are flowing to the richest 20% of Ontario residents. And naturally the Tories have reserved their biggest tax cut (we're talking 50%) for their favourite child, business. Government is there to allow us to build a better society, not just to balance the books.

They've clarified who's in charge of what

No, they haven't. An incompetent group of twits like the Tories couldn't clarify their way out of a paper bag. All they've done is transfer a whole range of services, from workfare programs to public health, to municipalities. According to the head of the government's own Who Does What panel, David Crombie, "Downloading social services, welfare and housing, that does not disentangle. It entangles." The head of the health restructuring committee has also criticized the government, calling their downloading frenzy "stupid." I'm not making this up, folks. The new structure is resulting in a patchwork of services across the province, and when you add budget cuts things are just a mess. Is that clear?

They've kept their election promises

They've kept some promises. The Tories promised to lower taxes and "crack down" on welfare, and hey, they did. And now the rich are richer and the poor are poorer and we're all screwed. I'm not going to applaud them for keeping promises that aren't worth keeping.

Now for the broken promises: Mike Harris promised not to close any hospitals, to prevent the introduction of new user fees, to control tuition increases, and not to cut budgets for justice, agriculture, the environment, and education. He also promised to leave cultural grants and moneys for northern development untouched. All of these promises have been broken.

They're popular

Well, everyone's entitled to their opinion, I guess. If you're sitting in a $300 000 house Mike Harris's policies aren't going to hurt you much. Still, there's the question of who makes public opinion. The Tories have shown an inordinate fondness for propaganda. At every crisis their admen come to the rescue with some thirty-second spot vilifying the government's opponents. I don't think any other government in Canada has used the media this way, and I find it rather disturbing.

They don't listen to special interest groups

The Tories use the term "special interest group" as an epithet to describe groups who have the nerve to publicly disagree with them. You see, all those environmentalists and anti-poverty activists are just selfish bastards. It's the magnanimous rich and the business community who selflessly think of the common good. But really, everyone in society is a member of various informal interest groups. Businessmen and the rich are interest groups, and the Tories seem quite willing to listen to them and carry out their dictates. So the Tories actually listen to interest groups too much, and at the expense of the rest of society.