Check out this very worthwhile but little-noticed interview with Mike Harris from a golf magazine. He shares some interesting perspective about his life and his politics, as well as his history with golf. Turns out he isn't that good a player (best he ever got was a 6 or 7 handicap.) I like what he said about cheaters:
Golf has been a big asset in your professional life.
...you've probably heard the saying so many times that you get to know a lot about a person on the golf course - if they cheat in golf, then they usually cheat in business and cheat in life.
It's an old saying, but you've found it to be very true?
Very true. And I don't consider them golfers if they don't respect golf for what it is, and the rules of golf. It shows how you handle adversity too. Are you a club thrower? Do you get frustrated very easily if you're having a bad day?
Good for Mike Harris. This kind of comment says a lot about him as a person. Of course, the most significant part of the interview is the very last question:
How badly did you want to be prime minister?
I actually didn't want to be prime minister. I had no desire to live at 24 Sussex and to host foreign dignitaries four nights a week, and deal with all that stuff. That's all the negative stuff to me. What turned me on was the opportunity to go and change things. So if I could be prime minister with a majority government, and cut taxes, and cut the civil service in half... There were things that I would like to see this country do: make Canadians proud again, proud of the military, proud that we can compete. That's what I wanted to do, and the only way you can do that is to be prime minister and have the majority government to do it. The drawback to doing that was being prime minister, and that's why I didn't want to do it. I'll encourage others to do it.
And there you have it. He didn't and does not want to Prime Minister of Canada.
# posted by Adam Daifallah : 12:25 AM
