Canadahistory.com

Canadahistory.com

Charles Joseph Clark was born in High River Alberta, just south of Calgary, on June 5th, 1939. His early life was spent around his fathers newspaper business, the High River Times, delivering newspapers and helping where ever he could. He was initially attracted to the idea of a career in journalism but when he entered the University of Alberta he was quickly swept up by politics and joined the Conservative Party. He quickly rose in the ranks of the young Conservatives and became the  National President of the Progressive Conservative Student Federation.

Clark was ready and willing to travel anywhere and work on any Conservative campaign. In three years he worked on Alan Lazerte's provincial campaign in Alberta, Diefenbaker's national campaign, Davie Fulton in British Columbia and then back to Alberta Provincial politics and Peter Lougheed's campaign. He finally decided to through his own hat in the ring during the 1967 Provincial Election in Alberta and went up against one f the toughest opponents in the race, the speaker of the house but lost by only 462 votes. Without missing a beat Clark once again charged ahead campaigning for Davey Fulton when he challenged to replace Diefenbaker for the leadership of the Conservative Party. Although Fulton lost, Clark was recruited by the winner, Robert Stanfield and ran in High River in 1972 as a Federal MP.

Clark was recognized as an up and coming member of the Conservative caucus and after repeated losses to Trudeau, Robert Stanfield stepped down and Clark ran for the leadership of the Federal Conservatives against many strong candidates including Flora MacDonald, Claude Wagner and Brian Mulroney. Clark won and after 4 years as opposition leader had his chance at the Prime Ministership when Trudeau called an election.

The country had grown disillusioned with Trudeau and in 1979, Clark managed to win a minority government and at 39 became the youngest Prime Minister in Canadian history. Things looked promising for Clark when Trudeau announced his retirement and the Conservatives pressed ahead with their agenda facing a leaderless, confused and largely directionless opposition in the Liberals. Clark began to believe that he was gaining the confidence of the Canadian people and when he was threatened with a vote of non-confidence which would trigger an election he refused to back down. He may have indeed won a larger minority or even a majority government if the Liberals had turned to anyone else as a leader but in a move that was engineered by Jim Coutts, Trudeau was convince to come back one more time and with the looming threat of a separatist vote in Quebec, Clark was swept from power and Trudeau returned as Prime Minister once again.