Clark, Joe (1939-…), became the youngest prime minister in the history of Canada. He was only 39 years old when he succeeded Pierre Elliott Trudeau in June 1979. Clark took office after leading the Progressive Conservative Party to its first national victory since 1962. But Clark’s popularity fell rapidly, and Trudeau became prime minister again in March 1980.
Clark rose to national fame quickly during the 1970’s. He first held public office in 1972, when voters in western Alberta elected him to the House of Commons. In 1976, the Progressive Conservative Party selected the 36-year-old Clark as its leader. Although he had only a few years of experience in public office at that time, Clark was no newcomer to politics. During the 1960’s, he had held leadership positions in student political groups and worked in campaigns for Conservative candidates. From 1967 to 1970, he had served as an assistant to Robert L. Stanfield, the party leader.
Clark became known as a careful thinker who was more concerned with practical solutions than with political theories. His associates respected him for his political strategy and skill as a debater. Clark had little time for recreation, but he liked to relax by reading a mystery novel or watching a movie.
Clark became prime minister at a troubled time in Canada’s history. Since 1976, the provincial government of Quebec had been controlled by the Parti Quebecois, a political party that favored the separation of Quebec from Canada. Many French Canadians supported separation as a way to guarantee the preservation of the French language and culture in Quebec. Clark also faced the problems of high rates of unemployment and inflation. His first challenges as prime minister were to find solutions to these and other difficulties that threatened Canada’s national unity and its economic stability.
Early life
Boyhood.
Charles Joseph Clark was born on June 5, 1939, in High River, Alberta, a farming community about 30 miles (48 kilometers) south of Calgary. His father, Charles A. Clark, published a weekly newspaper, the High River Times. Joe Clark’s grandfather had started the paper in 1905, shortly after coming to the area from Kincardine, Ontario. Charles Clark met Grace Welch while both were students at the University of Alberta, and they were married in 1937. Joe was their first child. They had one other son, Peter, born in 1942.
Joe enjoyed camping, horseback riding, and the outdoors. He rarely participated in sports, but he reported on local sporting events for his father’s paper. In high school, Joe showed talent for writing and public speaking. He made his first public speech at the age of 16. It won him a trip to Ottawa, where he observed Parliament in session and met John G. Diefenbaker, who later became prime minister of Canada. The trip stimulated Joe’s interest in politics. His mother recalled that he returned home saying, “We don’t have democracy in this country. It’s run by one party, and it should have an effective and strong opposition.”
College years.
In 1957, Clark entered the University of Alberta, where he majored in history. He soon became active in the campus Progressive Conservative club and campaigned door-to-door for Conservative candidates in the 1958 election. In 1959, he gained valuable political experience by serving as secretary and chauffeur to the leader of the Progressive Conservative Party in Alberta.
In spite of his interest in politics, Clark devoted most of his time and energy to the student newspaper, the Gateway. During his third year at the university, he served as editor of the Gateway. In his editorials, he frequently criticized the provincial government and commented on national political issues. Clark’s studies suffered because he gave so much time to journalism and politics. He graduated in 1960. He hoped to study political science at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. But Georgetown rejected his application, and he set out on a tour of Europe in the fall of 1961.
Political career
Political worker and student.
Clark returned to Canada early in 1962 to accept a job at Progressive Conservative headquarters in Ottawa. There he prepared campaign literature, wrote speeches for members of Parliament, and organized conventions. In the fall, he left his job to enter law school at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. After one year, he transferred to the University of British Columbia Law School in Vancouver.
Clark disliked law school, however, and he devoted most of his time to politics both at Dalhousie and in Vancouver. In 1962, he was elected president of the Progressive Conservative Student Federation. In Vancouver, Clark also worked in an unsuccessful Conservative election campaign to gain control of the provincial government. His absorption in politics caused Clark to neglect his schoolwork. He failed his final exams in 1964, and his law school career ended.
In the fall of 1964, Clark began the first of three years as a graduate student in political science at the University of Alberta. From 1965 to 1967, he supported himself by working part time as a teaching assistant and journalist. But politics continued to claim a major share of his time. In 1964, he helped found the Canadian Political Youth Council and served as secretary of the National Conference on Canadian Goals. From 1965 to 1967, Clark worked for Peter Lougheed, the Conservative leader in Alberta. Clark played a major role in developing campaign strategies that led to the election of Lougheed and five other Conservatives to the Alberta legislature in 1967.
Also in 1967, Clark himself sought election to public office for the first time. He ran for the Alberta legislature against a candidate whom political experts considered unbeatable. Clark lost, but by a remarkably small margin—only 461 votes out of nearly 13,000.
From 1967 to 1970, Clark worked in Ottawa as an assistant to Robert L. Stanfield, the leader of the Progressive Conservative Party. In his spare time, he studied French and began to develop a good command of the language. This ability later became a valuable political asset because French is the native language of more than a fourth of Canada’s people.
In May 1970, Clark resigned from his job with Stanfield and began another visit to Europe. During his stay, he observed British politics, worked on his thesis for his master’s degree, and continued his study of French. When he returned to Canada late in 1970, he was determined to run for Parliament as soon as possible.
Member of Parliament.
In 1971, Clark decided to seek election to the Canadian House of Commons from the riding (district) of Rocky Mountain in western Alberta. After a hard-fought campaign, he defeated his Liberal opponent by more than 5,000 votes in the election in October 1972. Clark quickly gained a reputation in Parliament as a skilled speaker who could be both witty and aggressive in attacking Liberal Party policies.
Late in 1972, Clark hired a research assistant named Maureen McTeer, a student at the University of Ottawa. She had been active in Progressive Conservative politics. Clark and McTeer began to date in March 1973, and they were married on June 30 of that year. She and Clark have one daughter, Catherine, born in 1976.
In the election of 1974, the voters reelected Clark to the House of Commons by a wide margin. But overall, the Conservatives did poorly in the election. As a result, Stanfield decided to resign as party leader. Clark announced his candidacy in November 1975. His wife interrupted her studies at the University of Ottawa Law School to help him campaign. She became a public figure known for her support of women’s rights.
Party leader.
Clark faced 10 opponents in the race for party leader, and few political observers thought he would win. But his tireless campaigning and youthful, popular image carried him to victory at the party convention held in February 1976.
In his acceptance speech, Clark committed the Progressive Conservative Party to a positive style of campaigning. He declared that “Canadians today don’t want to know what we’re against. They want to know what we are for.” As party leader, Clark called for decreased government spending, restrictions on the right of public employees to strike, and fewer economic controls.
The 1979 election.
In March 1979, Prime Minister Trudeau called a general election for May. During the campaign, Clark criticized the Liberals for their failure to solve Canada’s economic problems, which included inflation and high unemployment. The Progressive Conservatives pledged that a Conservative government would cut taxes, reduce government spending, and encourage private investment in the Canadian economy. Clark also proposed that the government allow homeowners to deduct part of their mortgage interest and property tax payments from their income tax.
Trudeau and the Liberals concentrated on the issue of national unity. Trudeau, a French Canadian, favored the preservation of French language and culture in Canada but firmly opposed independence for Quebec.
Clark believed the problem of national unity could not be solved by seeking a common national identity among French- and English-speaking Canadians. Instead, he urged Canadians to recognize their nation as a collection of regional cultures.
The election of 1979 ended 16 years of Liberal government. The Progressive Conservatives won 135 of the 282 seats in the House of Commons, and Clark became prime minister. The Liberals won 115 seats, and the rest went to smaller parties.
Prime minister.
Clark took office as prime minister on June 4. Shortly after the election, Conservative officials indicated that they no longer favored a tax cut and that they needed to revise the deduction plan for homeowners. Opposition to Clark’s government soon became widespread. The government was defeated on a vote concerning its budget, which called for a sharp increase in gasoline taxes. On Dec. 13, 1979, the House of Commons passed a motion of no-confidence in Clark’s government, and the government fell from power.
Clark called a general election for February 1980. In the election, the Liberals won a majority of the seats in the House of Commons, and Trudeau again became prime minister. Opposition to Clark’s leadership of the Progressive Conservative Party increased. In June 1983, the party chose Brian Mulroney to replace Clark as its leader. Mulroney became prime minister in September 1984.
Later years.
Clark continued working in government after serving as prime minister. From 1984 to 1991, he was secretary of state for external affairs under Mulroney. From 1991 to 1993, Clark was Mulroney’s minister of constitutional affairs and president of the Privy Council. He served as a special representative of the United Nations from 1993 to 1996. He also held positions in private businesses during the mid-1990’s. In 1998, Clark returned to politics and was again elected leader of the Progressive Conservative Party. In a September 2000 by-election (special election), he was elected to the House of Commons from the riding of Kings-Hants in Nova Scotia. In the general election of November 2000, he was elected to the House of Commons from the riding of Calgary Centre in Alberta. In June 2003, Clark resigned as leader of the Progressive Conservative Party. He kept his seat in the House of Commons until 2004.
See also Prime minister of Canada.
