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| Time for Canadians to stop paying attention to... - Monday, May 03, 2004 at 10:35 |
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PUBLICATION: The New Brunswick Telegraph Journal -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Time for Canadians to stop paying attention to Clark's rants -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Arrrrrrrgh! I had hoped we were finally rid of Joe Clark, or at least would be come the federal election, in which he is mercifully not planning to re-offer. When Mr. Clark stalked away in a snit to sit as an independent after the party he led twice voted massively to merge with the Canadian Alliance and become the new Conservative Party of Canada, I figured he was finally off the public stage, and good riddance. But Mr. Clark is like one of those inflatable toys with a rounded, weighted base that pops back up the matter how vigorously and persistently you knock it down. Even in (his second) retirement he continues to strut and posture like a legend in his own mind, and now, blinded by his dislike for Stephen Harper, the erstwhile Reform/Alliance movement, and indeed conservatism itself, there he was on CTV's Question Period on Sunday declaring that he'd rather see Paul Martin, leader of the Liberal Party Mr. Clark opposed for his entire political career, win the next federal election. You would think that Mr. Clark had done enough to sabotage the cause of Canadian conservatism, and for someone who had been so prominent in Tory circles turn coat that blatantly is to say the least déclassé, but not out of character for Joe. The sorry fact is that Joe is no conservative and never has been. He is a political-correctness obsessed small-l liberal, evidenced once again in his comments on CTV where he made special mention of disgraced NDP MP Svend Robinson's private member's Bill C-250 currently before the Senate, that would criminalize negative critics of homosexual orientation, saying it was being held up by "Stephen Harper's senators." In point of fact, the Senator leading the opposition to passage of C-250 is Anne Cools, a Liberal, and since no Tory Senators have been appointed since the Alliance /PC merger, let alone since Mr. Harper became Tory leader, it would be more accurate to say that Conservative members of the Upper House allied with Sen. Cools are Brian Mulroney's senators or even Joe Clark's senators. But why would anyone listen to Joe Clark anymore anyway? He's become a parody of himself. The man's main accomplishment in a long political career was coming from behind in the 1976 Tory leadership race to beat Claude Wagner, Flora MacDonald and Brian Mulroney, and then more or less backing into a minority government in 1979 riding a wave of temporary backlash against Pierre Trudeau, only to squander that opportunity seven months later by stubbornly refusing to do simple head-count arithmetic before a budget vote. In his second tour as retread PC leader, Joe led the party to a fifth-place finish, dropping nine seats and barely managing to retain official party status, winning more than a single seat in only three provinces. As for Mr. Clark's spiteful assertion that he is "concerned with the imprint of Stephen Harper, not only what he stood for in the past, but the way he has led this party," what does he think he's talking about? Mr. Harper has true-blue Tory roots as a party worker in the early 1980s for then Calgary MP Jim Hawkes. Ironically, Mr. Harper was looked upon with suspicion by right-wing Alliance members when he campaigned for the party leadership in 2001. Mr. Harper supported Ontarian Tom Long for the initial Alliance leadership race, and at the time commented that objections aired by social conservatives in the party about homosexual activists being members of Mr. Long's campaign team could be harmful to the new party, chiding them for allegedly wanting to define the Alliance Party party strictly in terms of litmus tests on the abortion and homosexuality issues. In an April, 1998 speech, when he was out of politics, Mr. Harper affirmed: "Governing requires a conservative temperament. This temperament includes a respect for tradition, a penchant for incremental change and a strong sense of honourable compromise.... The clear need in the area of national unity is to bring together both East and West as well as English and French. It is only by bringing together those different perspectives of the country that we can hope to truly unite it." Now, thanks to Mr. Harper's vision and perseverance, we have a a national conservative alternative to the corrupt and shopworn Liberals, and Joe Clark is petulantly trying to shoot it down. Former PC Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, the only Tory leader to win two consecutive majorities in the 20th Century, publicly and enthusiastically endorsed Mr. Harper's leadership at a party dinner in Moncton on Saturday. Hiccup of history Joe Clark, who led a minority government for seven months, says he is "extremely worried" by Mr. Harper's ideological views. Who does it make sense for conservatives to listen to? |