SEE Magazine
Copyright © 1998. All Rights Reserved.
OPINION
BY MARK LEIREN-YOUNGPrime Minister Joe Clark.
There was something so bizarre about the concept that during the brief blip in history when Canada was officially run by Prime Minister Who I refused to acknowledge it. Having grown up in the Trudeau era I couldn't accept the idea that the country was now under the control of a Donald Duck look-alike who appeared to be finding other countries on the globe by pulling out a big road map that you just knew he could never refold. Suddenly our suave global villager had been replaced by a guy who had lost his luggage.
Friends would try to trip me up by asking me the name of our prime minister. I'd say, "Trudeau." Then they'd ask who Joe Clark was.
"Exactly," I'd say. Then they'd ask what Clark was doing at 24 Sussex Drive.
"House-sitting," I'd reply, "while Pierre catches up on his skiing."
As it turned out, I was right.
Canadians soon discovered that Clark was so mathematically challenged it's a shock that when he returned during the Mulroney era he was never anointed finance minister.
His first miscalculation was not being able to figure out how high gas taxes could climb before voters decided he had to go.
His second mathematical error was an inability to count the number of MPs in the House of Commons which apparently led him to believe he was running a majority government.
Clark's next mathematical blunder created Brian Mulroney. Tired of behind-the-scenes sniping about his leadership skills Clark attempted to secure his status as a historical footnote by boldly declaring that more than 50 per cent of the votes in a leadership review wasn't actually a majority. After giving the Tories a chance to toss him out, he then misread the polling data and instead of stepping aside, assumed they'd re-annoint him. What made Clark a truly comical character in his first incarnation was his Inspector Clousseau meets Barney Fife combination of apparently equal parts of bumbling and arrogance.
Ancient history? Maybe. But the fact is that Clark is running on his reputation - and if he were simply running for Tory leader on the strength of his term as prime minister, he'd not only be trailing Hugh Segal but he'd be lagging behind Lucien Bouchard, Bill Vander Zalm and Ginger Spice.
Looking solely at the track record during those heady Right Honorable days, not only would Kim Campbell have a better shot at regaining the job than Clark, so would Charles Tupper - and he's been dead for nearly a century. Clark's term as prime minister is remembered like Dan Quayle's stint as vice-president. The only people who took him seriously were the cartoonists.
Ironically, it was Clark's arch-enemy Brian Mulroney who not only rehabilitated but provided Clark's reputation. Following Machiavelli's dictum of keeping your friends close and your enemies closer (the big Mac's other option was executing them, which is seldom done on the Canadian scene), Mulroney provided Clark with cabinet post after cabinet post. But instead of doing Brian the courtesy of blundering into political quicksand, the man who had been a joke as prime minister startled the nation by emerging as the brightest star in cabinet. To make matters more ironic, part of the reason his star glowed so brightly was because everyone suspected he hated Mulroney on a deeper, more visceral level than anyone else in the country. Heck, Clark probably still can't go suntanning because everyone would stare at all those knife wounds in his back.
When Clark joined the rest of the Mulroney regime in exile it appeared his career in politics was over. But when he wrote his own political tome we should have known something was up - especially since it was a philosophical text and not a reflection on his weeks in power. Sure this might have had something to do with the fact that his publisher must have felt that A Country Too Good To Lose had a better ring to it than Oops, What Was I Thinking? but reflections on the country's woes tend to be published by people like Jean Chrétien and Preston Manning - politicians in waiting.
Was Clark actually plotting a comeback when he drafted his book or was the fact that he published his political philosophy simply a startling coincidence?
After all, Clark has denied he wanted Mulroney's job almost as much as Mulroney denied he wanted Clark's. It's certainly hard to believe Clark would be that devious - which is one of his biggest selling features.
Another selling feature is that Clark's career now reads like an inspirational story straight out of People Magazine. After suffering abject humiliation, Canada's lovable loser dug himself out of the political gutter and now he's attempting to regain the status he lost and the respect he never had. It's the perfect parliamentary fairy tale.
Sifting through the tea leaves and the newspaper accounts, it looks like this time Clark did the math and the numbers add up - most of the Tories know who he is. And since his party has decided to forego a traditional convention, name recognition alone should be enough to earn him the top prize. It appears the man most famous for losing his luggage may have pulled off a more impressive trick and lost his embarrassing baggage.
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