CANADA : Ontario's 'Newt of the North' Scoring High : Conservative Premier Mike Harris is outdoing Gingrich & Co. with both more pervasive budget cuts and higher approval ratings.

CANADA : Ontario’s ‘Newt of the North’ Scoring High : Conservative Premier Mike Harris is outdoing Gingrich & Co. with both more pervasive budget cuts and higher approval ratings.

By CRAIG TURNER

Dec. 8, 1995 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

TORONTO —

When Ontario Premier Mike Harris recites the perceived ills he pledged to remedy when elected six months ago--high taxes, excessive regulation, government deficits and debt--he could be reading from the Republicans’ “contract with America.”

Harris, leader of Ontario’s Progressive Conservative Party, in fact, has been dubbed “Newt of the North” by that bulletin board of America’s right, the Wall Street Journal editorial page.

Reminded of this, Harris chuckled, then noted that his campaign manifesto preceded Newt Gingrich’s contract by a few months, even if he had to wait until June to get elected. And now that he’s in power, the 50-year-old Harris can point to more pervasive budget cuts and higher approval ratings than Gingrich & Co.

While Harris may be the newest poster boy of North America’s fiscal conservatives, in Canada he’s late to the party. Over the last three years, provincial leaders of all political persuasions have been squeezing public spending--and maintaining or even increasing their poll numbers in the bargain.

The Harris government’s latest budget, the second round of cuts since June, was announced Nov. 29. It calls for a 17% cut in expenditures over three years and a balanced provincial budget by the year 2001. He also pledges to reduce income taxes by 30%.

Ontario is Canada’s most-populous province, with 11.1 million residents, and is the country’s economic locomotive, accounting for 40% of gross domestic product. But numbers tell only part of the story, as provincial governments play a far larger role in citizens’ lives than do most U.S. states.

For example, every hospital, clinic and university is government-funded, which means no doctor bills for patients and low tuition for students--$1,814 (U.S.) annually at the University of Toronto. In Ontario, the government subsidizes, among others, day-care operators, amateur hockey teams, ballet dancers and filmmakers. It wholesales or retails every drop of liquor and owns a casino.

So the province’s $4.59-billion cut likely will be widely felt. Welfare recipients already have had grants reduced by 21.6%. The maximum monthly payment for a parent and two children in Toronto now is $804. (The basic grant to a similar family in Los Angeles County is $607, but they would also be eligible for as much as $313 in food stamps.)

Noisy demonstrators accompany Harris to every public appearance. Union leaders have called a protest strike Monday in London, vowing to shut down the Ontario city of 320,000.

But a poll completed by the Angus Reid Co. just before the newest budget cuts showed Harris with a 55% approval rating.

Ontario is the ninth of Canada’s 10 provinces to balance its budget or adopt a target date for ending the deficit. Only Quebec--and the federal government--have yet to give balanced-budget forecasts.

So far, there has been little political price to pay for either ideological position. For examples, look to Alberta, home of oil barons, and Saskatchewan, heartland of Canada’s socialist movement.

Harris’ fellow conservative, popular Alberta Premier Ralph Klein, has balanced the budget by cutting expenditures 20% and refusing to raise what are Canada’s lowest taxes. The left-of-center government of Premier Roy Romanow in Saskatchewan was reelected this year after raising taxes and closing 52 of 134 hospitals in the name of budget balancing.

* Andrew Van Velzen in The Times’ Toronto Bureau contributed to this report.

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All the Trimmings

Ontario Premier Mike Harris, right, is attacking his province’s debt with bold budget cuts. Other provinces have also made a balanced budget a priority.

Provincial debt per person in thousands

British Columbia: $3.8

Manitoba: $4.4

Prince Edward Island: $5.2

Alberta: $5.5

Saskatchewan: $6.2

Nova Scotia: $6.4

Ontario: $6.4

Quebec: $7.8

Newfoundland: $7.8

Gross debt in billions

British Columbia: $30