Jim Harris (politician) - Early Life and Green Activism

Early Life and Green Activism

Harris was born in Toronto, attended Lakefield College School, and received a Bachelor of Arts degree in English and History from Queen's University in Kingston in the 1980s. Initially a Progressive Conservative, he was converted to green politics in 1985 after reading Green Politics by Fritjof Capra and Charlene Spretnak, which highlights the rise of the German Greens. Harris worked as the national press officer of the British Green Party in 1987.

He helped organize the Ontario Green Party's campaign in the 1990 provincial election, and was himself a candidate in the Toronto division of St. Andrew—St. Patrick. In this election, he spoke against a provincial government decision to build more nuclear reactors in the province. The Green Party fielded 40 candidates and received 33,000 votes, a significant increase from seven candidates and 3,000 votes in the previous 1987 election. Harris finished fourth in his constituency.

Harris campaigned for Mayor of Toronto in the 1991 municipal election, as an independent candidate supporting green policies. He called for water conservation and a ban on city pesticide spraying, and supported stricter gun control. Considered a fringe candidate, he finished well behind frontrunners June Rowlands and Jack Layton.

In 1993, Harris and other Ontario Greens sought and won a change in the party's constitution allowing for the election of a full-time leader. The party had been nominally led by Katherine Mathewson in the 1990 election, but she held little influence over the campaign or policy. Harris and others argued that electing a full-time leader would allow the Green Party to organize professionally, and present a united message in future elections. Harris stood for the leadership, and lost to Frank de Jong. De Jong later supported Harris in his bid to become federal leader, while Harris endorsed de Jong's bid for re-election as provincial leader in 2001.

Harris was a Toronto organizer for the federal Green Party for the 1993 election, recruiting seventeen candidates in the area. New legislation brought in before the election required a party to run 50 candidate or suffer de-registration and lose its assets. By fielding seventeen candidates in the Toronto region (which then had roughly twenty-two ridings) the Toronto team presented over one-third of the national requirement. Harris stood for election in St. Paul's, and finished sixth.

Harris campaigned for leader of the Green Party of Canada in 1997, and finished second against Joan Russow. He was elected as the first president of the Green Party of Ontario in 2001, and served in that capacity until moving to the federal arena in 2003.