Joe Clark

:This article is about Joe Clark the Canadian political leader. For other people named Joe Clark please see this page.

Under Mulroney

In 1983, after declaring that an endorsement by 66 per cent of delegates at the party's biennial convention was not enough, Clark called a Progressive Conservative leadership convention to decide the issue. After a heated campaign, he led on the first three ballots before losing on the final ballot to arch-rival Brian Mulroney. Mulroney won a huge victory in the 1984 election, and became prime minister. Many political observers and analysts have questioned Clark's rationale for the decision. One famous incident involved a 1987 state dinner held in honour of visiting royal Charles, Prince of Wales. The Prince, who was seated next to Clark at the function, asked him "why 66 percent was not enough?" Clark's wife, Maureen McTeer, elaborated on Clark's decision in her 2003 autobiography In My Own Name. McTeer suggested that for her husband, anything less than a 75 percent endorsement would not have been a clear enough mandate to forge onwards from the party membership. Clark feared that the 35 percent of PC members who did not support him would become his most vocal critics in the upcoming election campaign and his continued leadership would have led to fractures in the party. Clark was convinced that he could win another leadership race and gain a clear level of support once his qualities were compared against the handful of politically inexperienced challengers who coveted his position and who were covertly undermining his leadership.

Related Topics:
Progressive Conservative leadership convention - Brian Mulroney - 1984 election - Charles, Prince of Wales

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Secretary of State for External Affairs

Despite their personal differences, Clark ably served in Mulroney's cabinet as secretary of state for external affairs.

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Some observers considered him to have been one of, if not the single, most competent foreign affairs ministers that Canada has ever had, sometimes comparing him to Lester B. Pearson — who had won a Nobel Peace Prize. Some of Clark's accomplishments and bold moves in this role included:

Related Topics:
Lester B. Pearson - Nobel Peace Prize

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• convincing Mulroney to appoint Stephen Lewis as Canada's ambassador to the United Nations — who later became the UN special envoy on the AIDS crisis; many believe Lewis' appointment was Clark's price to serve under Mulroney
• in 1984, being the very first developed nation foreign affairs minister to land in previously-isolated Ethiopia to lead the Western response to the 1984 - 1985 famine in Ethiopia; Clark landed in Addis Ababa so quickly he had not even seen the initial CBC report that had created the initial and strong public reaction; Canada's response was overwhelming and led the US and Britain to follow suit almost immediately — an unprecedented situation in foreign affairs to that time, since Ethiopia had a Marxist one-state regime and had previously been wholly isolated by "the West"
• a famous public rebuke to the Canadian Jewish Congress for its stance of supporting the state of Israel without limitation no matter what it had done
• taking a strong stand against apartheid and for economic sanctions against South Africa at a time when Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher very strongly opposed such sanctions
• taking a strong stand against Nicaraguan intervention under Reagan
• accepting refugees from El Salvador, Guatemala, and other countries with regimes supported directly by Reagan
• managing nonetheless to maintain extremely strong ties with the US and deep coordination where Canada and the US agreed, helping steer the North American Free Trade Agreement negotiations to a final agreement

All told, he managed to maintain Canada's independent voice politically and socially at a time of increasing economic integration with the US and the rise of more socially conservative right-wing politics there.

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Minister for Constitutional Affairs

Perhaps in part because of Queen Elizabeth II's support — she too opposed apartheid — Clark then served as the president of the Queen's Privy Council for Canada.

Related Topics:
Queen Elizabeth II - President of the Queen's Privy Council for Canada

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With Quebec's constitutional status within Canada a rising issue, he shifted to become the minister responsible for constitutional affairs. The latter position saw him play a leading role in the drafting of the failed Charlottetown Accord. He retired from politics in 1993, side-stepping the near annihilation of the PC party in the 1993 election under the leadership of Mulroney's successor Kim Campbell.

Related Topics:
Quebec's constitutional status within Canada - Charlottetown Accord - 1993 - 1993 election - Kim Campbell

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In the 1995 Quebec referendum, the federal side won by under one percent of the vote. It was widely seen as being the failure of Charlottetown and prior Meech Lake accords that had caused it to be so close.

Related Topics:
1995 Quebec referendum - Meech Lake

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Second PC leadership

One of the two PC candidates to survive the 1993 wipe-out, Jean Charest, became leader of the PC party following Campbell's resignation. After leading the party to modest success in the 1997 election, winning 20 seats, Charest bowed to tremendous public pressure and left federal politics to become leader of the Parti libéral du Québec (unaffiliated with the federal Liberals).

Related Topics:
Jean Charest - 1997 election - Parti libéral du Québec - Liberals

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The party had no obvious candidate to fill Charest's shoes, and turned to Clark once again. In 1998, Clark returned as leader of the Progressive Conservatives. Clark was elected as Member of Parliament for Kings?Hants, Nova Scotia, in a by-election on September 11, 2000, and in the general election held two months later for Calgary Centre, Alberta. While the party had been expected to be wiped out, Clark's strong performance in the leaders' debates drove the party to another modest success: the party won exactly the 12 seats necessary to be recognized in the House of Commons as an official party and therefore qualify for research funding, committee memberships, and minimum speaking privileges. Aside from Clark's Calgary seat and one each in Manitoba and Quebec, the party's seats were concentrated in the Atlantic provinces.

Related Topics:
1998 - Member of Parliament - Kings?Hants - Nova Scotia - September 11 - 2000 - General election - Calgary Centre - Alberta - Manitoba

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Clark never lost hope that the PCs would eventually retake Ontario and form a federal government again. He continued to support those working for Red Tories to retake the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario, and strongly supported by-election races by many promising young politicians including Elio Di Iorio. Clark's personal popularity grew as, once again, scandal enveloped a lame-duck Liberal regime under Chretien. Clark was widely trusted but this, in his own words, did not translate into additional seats.

Related Topics:
Red Tories - Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario - Elio Di Iorio

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Citing this exact rationale, Clark announced his intention to step down as PC leader on August 6, 2002. He was replaced by Peter MacKay on May 31, 2003 in a controversial deal with Red Tory rival David Orchard, whom Clark had always encouraged MacKay to keep within the Conservative camp.

Related Topics:
August 6 - 2002 - Peter MacKay - May 31 - 2003 - David Orchard

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Mulroney's attitude to Clark

Although Clark and Mulroney had long been perceived as bitter opponents, Mulroney's speech at the 2003 convention praised Clark as an honest and admirable leader who had the distinction of being the only prime minister in recent memory who, even when he failed, was always respected, and never hated, by the Canadian public. At the time of his retirement polls showed that he was in fact the single most trusted political personality in Canada.

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