Harris’s convertible ‘perfect’ for Northern Ontario

COURTESY OF MIKE HARRIS

The passenger-side door of former premier Mike Harris' first car got ripped off and he never bothered to get it fixed. He kept it locked to hold it on and people would crawl in the window.

Yvonne Marton

SPECIAL TO THE STAR

Common sense? You’d think that former Conservative Premier Mike Harris, who won two majority elections on that very platform, would pick a staid, sensible first car.

Hardly.

In 1969, with his savings – he thinks maybe around $500 – he bought a ’64 Buick Skylark two-door convertible from his friend’s father.

“I thought I’d died and gone to heaven! Here I had a Buick and it was a convertible.” Chuckling, he adds, “It was perfect for Northern Ontario.”

The car, a romantic choice, clearly has a glamour that still resonates.

“You know, when you put the top down it was flashy and it had a pretty good pop, too.”

But what did it say about the young Mike Harris?

“That’s not the kind of car that somebody at that age, buying their first car – they would have been looking for something less flashy – a little more economical. So that wasn’t me. Never has been.”

The car paid off in other ways.

“During that period of my life, for the most of that time I had that vehicle I was single and dating a lot and partying a lot. Girls liked the car.” He pauses, “That’s as far as I’m going.”

Harris has a wry wit and is clearly more comfortable talking politics than about his early years in North Bay.

He is relaxed and rumpled in a light grey suit – no tie – sitting in an empty boardroom in the downtown law office where he is a senior business advisor. Harris is also on a number of corporate boards and is Lead Director at auto parts manufacturer Magna International.

Affable but direct, he speaks slowly and purposefully, though he doesn’t mince words.

Like many who came of age in the Sixties, Harris was caught between the desire for freedom and a strong sense of family responsibility. As a young man he worked for his father in a number of enterprises, which proved to be difficult.

“I respected him and I loved him but he was tough, ‘cause when it was in his interest to treat you like a son he treated you like a son and when it was in his interest to treat you like an employer he treated you like an employer.”

When Harris dropped out of school. his dad kicked him out of the house. He taught skiing in Quebec and says he had a “grand time” living the life of a Quebec ski bum.

After a couple of years, he moved back to North Bay permanently, enrolling in teacher’s college. He was 23. He concedes teaching was a bit of a fall-back and that he wasn’t sure what he wanted to do. All the while he also worked part-time for his father running a ski hill and building up a summer resort.

He says his dad thought the choice of a convertible was “impractical” but quickly adds his reaction: “So what – it’s my life.”

Despite the multiple jobs – he earned $6,000 as a teacher – those years were lean.

“I was scraping by – I wasn’t filling the gas tank every time.”

If it wasn’t the winter’s cold or the summer’s bugs, there were other problems with Harris’ Skylark – namely the passenger door.

“I was backing out of a driveway and the passenger opened the door into a snowbank and ripped it off.”

He couldn’t afford to fix the door so he tried to keep it locked. Passengers entered through the driver’s side, the window, or when the top was down, they jumped in Dukes of Hazzard-style.

“If anyone opened the door it fell into the snow bank and it would take 10 minutes to fit it back in. I never did get the door fixed.”

Harris says he wasn’t “overly mechanical” and relied on friends who would help out from time to time. He says the engine ran right to the end and “I ran it into the ground.”

“I do remember towing it at the end or shoving it to the wrecker. I think I got 25 bucks.”

Harris says he’s always tended to buy GM or Ford vehicles owning everything from Oldsmobiles, to Cadillacs and Lincolns.

“Right now, I’m driving a very fuel-efficient Lincoln Navigator because I drive back and forth to North Bay a lot, with kids a lot, so I drive a bigger vehicle. Burns a lot of gas but its also bigger and safer on the highway and I feel safer in it.”

Though he owns a GM car, he’s a critic of the company’s bailout. (The province of Ontario paid $3.5-billion for a 3.8% ownership in GM Corp.).

“I think GM got about $60-billion. I think probably all sixty of that was wasted and prevented the kind of restructuring that should have taken place both within management and the union.”

He places the blame on US President Barack Obama for stepping in: “Once Obama came in, we had to do something or else we’d have lost it all to the States.”

Surprisingly he says, “I blame the management more than I do the union,” but adds there needs to be an attitude change between both parties.

“I think it could very easily happen again three, four, five years if they don’t become one team instead of the way they operate. I don’t think they’re efficient enough yet.”

“Whenever you bail out the inefficient you hurt the efficient . . . so that’s just a lesson in life.”

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