May 8, 2000
What now, Joe Clark? - THE COMMENTARY
By Joseph Planta
VANCOUVER -- Joe Clark is in trouble.
Let’s step back a few years to 1993 and the General Election held in October of that year. Brian Mulroney had stepped down leaving his party in a bind. The new leader and the new Prime Minister would have to rebuild the Progressive Conservatives quickly to pose any sort of fight in the upcoming election. Their 5 year mandate was closing in on an end and the Tories were in it deep, they couldn’t pose a real threat to the opposition Liberals, thus Kim Campbell was resigned to having the dubious distinction of being PM for something like 15 minutes; and being the person held responsible for driving the Tories into the ground. From a 170-something seats they were delegated with 2 measly seats and perpetual embarrassment. Kim Campbell moved to Hollywood, and the Tories endorsed Jean Charest as leader. Mr. Charest did a pretty good job in rebuilding the party, as he brought 20-odd seats to the Tories in the election of 1997.
Then in 1998, a bit after Lucien Bouchard took over the premiership of Quebec from Jacques Parizeau, Quebec’s Liberal leader Daniel Johnson decided to step aside. The Quebec Liberals needed a new leader and Prime Minister Chrétien (a cloddish sort of ‘No to separation’ guy) needed someone to represent Canada’s interest in Quebec.
Chrétien, ever the opportunist noticed the Tory uprising and decided to stifle it by drafting Jean Charest (a Tory) into taking the Liberal leadership. Charest, did and took Bouchard on in a Provincial election, losing, but not too badly. The biggest losers weren’t the separatists or the federalists, but the Federal Tories.
Something like $7-million bucks in debt and leaderless, watching their long-time support being scooped up by Reform, Joe Clark decided to step back into the political fray. He entered their leadership race in 1998 and won. He won, because the other losers in the race weren’t nearly dumb enough to take the leadership.
So there we have it today. Joe Clark is planning to take his Tories into the next election, but the truth of the matter is that they’re forgetting about a new club in town, called the Canadian Alliance. The support of the Tories is eroding. Some are smelling the BS and moving onto the Alliance and the sitting Tory MP’s are defecting faster than the $50 dollar bills at the NCHS.
The National Post, late last week had articles about the Tory caucus headed up by Peter MacKay and Elsie Wayne demanding an ultimatum. They go into a press scrum on Thursday, clutching onto each other yelling and carrying on like they were union guys. They denied an internal leadership squabble was going on.
The Tories have made a request to their leader that Mr. Clark run in the upcoming by-election, so he could have a seat in the house. Clark, since taking the leadership has refused to take a seat, even if one of his own sitting members resigns parachuting Clark in. I guess, Joe Clark is saving his skin and pride in case of an embarrassing loss. Which could happen. Joe Clark has declared he would run in his homebase of Calgary, even that is impossible to comprehend. He’ll never win in Calgary, so he’d better run in New Brunswick where he’ll win for sure.
I’m expecting an announcement from him this week and that’ll ignite the party a bit, but the jazz and fanfare will be with the Canadian Alliance.
The Tories won’t join up with the CA. They’ll see some of their own cross the floor, but the Tories will still be around and most dangerously they’ll split the right-wing vote further. And that’s a stinking shame. The Liberals are still smiling.
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