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At Issue

With Philip Shaw

Joe Clark Falls on the Sword for Days Gone By

Tuesday, April 27, 2004

Is the devil we know better than the devil we don't know? According to Joe Clark, he is. Last Sunday former Prime Minister and Progressive Conservative leader Joe Clark went on CTV's question period and promptly jumped off a cliff. He said if he had to choose between Conservative leader Stephen Harper and Liberal Prime Minister Paul Martin, he'd choose Martin. According to Joe, he's the lesser of two evils.

Watching Joe on TV, I was taken aback. Here is a political guy who has fought Liberals all his life but he's cashing that all in because he doesn't like the new conservative movement in Canada. It reminds me of an old editor of mine who used to say all politicians are the same. There was Joe, sitting on CTV's question period reinforcing that.

To be fair, Joe Clark wasn't saying anything different than he ever has regarding what he thinks was a take over of the Progressive Conservatives by the Canadian Alliance. I had a lot of respect for Joe choosing to go his own way. He's got PC branded on his behind. Sitting in the new party just wouldn't be Joe.

I was expecting Joe to quietly settle into the sunset. So when he had his brain fart on national TV last week, I lost a little respect for him. It's over Joe. If you don't believe that ask former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney. He has endorsed Harper. It is one thing to be still sore with Harper, but endorsing Martin at this point in your career only cheapens his legacy.

Joe is taking the line of many old mainstream politicians in Canada. He's calling Harper extreme. He says he has a hidden agenda. The Liberals are doing the same thing. In the upcoming election campaign, they will try to make Stephen Harper look to the right of Attila the Hun!

I don't have any political affiliation. Through the years, I've admired many politicians, but have never been won over to any political movement. However, in the last ten years I've really chafed at the attitude of some of our Liberal politicians. The political atmosphere is such that when you disagree with a Liberal, you're labeled "extreme." Joe Clark's fuss up over the weekend exemplified that.

Take the economy for instance. Are we supposed to assume that the Liberal party is the only good caretaker of an economy, which has been humming on all cylinders for the better part of 10 years? Would Stephen Harper or Jack Layton send our economy on a fiscal bender, which we'd never recover from? The answer to both these questions is an emphatic no. A Liberal alternative whether it be Harper on the right or Layton on the left would act in conjunction with the Bank of Canada in the best interest of Canadians.

The alarmists (including Joe) talk about a Canada where gays go back in the closet, women lose their rights and immigrants need not apply. I don't see any of this in the conservative movement. I frankly see more intolerance by those in the liberal movement who won't accept a difference of opinion as just that.

Having said that, it's too bad Joe Clark "jumped the shark." I have always admired Joe Clark. Over the last few years, when Jean Chretien had his problems with the Grand Mere Lodge in Shawinigan, it was Clark who had the Liberals off guard. I had to laugh at the time. Joe Clark stared down Pierre Trudeau for several years. The Chretienites were Sunday school amateurs to him. It really showed.

But my previous admiration for Joe Clark was a lot more personal than that. In 1992 Canada went to the polls to vote on the Charlottetown Accord. It was Brian Mulroney's constitutional solution for Canada. Joe Clark was its main architect. At the time, I counseled my readers to vote yes on the accord; the only time in my journalistic career I've ever done that. My feeling at the time was farmers would have a much greater political voice in a Canada with an elected senate. My agricultural readership ate it up.

During the run up to the referendum, I sent Joe Clark a copy of "Under the Agridome" where I told my readers why I supported the accord and how it would affect agricultural policy. After the defeat of accord, I got a long letter from Joe Clark. He told me how my musings about agricultural policy under a successful Charlottetown Accord were very sound. From that day on, Joe Clark always held great respect with me.

But last Sunday, Joe slipped a peg. It's too bad he couldn't have left things alone. Sometimes you just have to go on and leave the past behind. Unfortunately, some people cannot lend themselves to do that. I hope the devil Joe knows, doesn't come back to haunt him.



Philip Shaw, farms 830 acres near Dresden, Ontario. He holds a Masters of Agricultural Economics and Business Degree from the University of Guelph and is a well-known commentator on agricultural issues in print, on radio and over satellite in Canada and the United States. In the Chatham-Kent Times, Phil will use his frank and forthright writing style to address political and economic issues from the local to the international stage. He is a keen observer of political life at all levels, reads widely and has travelled the world to gather fodder for his column. See what's At Issue this week.