Who was Joe Clark?
Answer
Canada's 16th Prime Minister (1979 to 1980), a Progressive Conservative who led a short-lived minority government before losing a confidence vote on his first budget.
Explanation
Charles Joseph 'Joe' Clark (born June 5, 1939) was Canada's 16th Prime Minister, serving from June 4, 1979 to March 3, 1980, just nine months in office. Clark was a Progressive Conservative and led the party from 1976 to 1983 and again from 1998 to 2003. At the time of his 1979 election victory at age 39 (he turned 40 four days after taking office), Clark was the youngest Prime Minister in Canadian history.
Clark was born in High River, Alberta and was the first Prime Minister born in Western Canada (after John Diefenbaker, who was born in Ontario but raised in Saskatchewan). Clark studied at the University of Alberta and Dalhousie University, working as a journalist and political organiser before being elected to the House of Commons in 1972 from Rocky Mountain. He won the 1976 Progressive Conservative leadership convention on the fourth ballot, defeating Brian Mulroney and others.
Clark's brief government formed after the May 22, 1979 federal election, in which the Progressive Conservatives won 136 seats (a minority) compared to 114 for the Liberals. Clark's Cabinet of 30 ministers included the first woman finance minister (Flora MacDonald as Secretary of State for External Affairs, the senior diplomatic post). Clark approved the 1979 Canadian Caper, in which Canadian Ambassador to Iran Ken Taylor exfiltrated six American diplomats from revolutionary Tehran (a story later dramatised in the 2012 film Argo).
Clark's government fell on December 13, 1979 when his first budget (containing an 18-cent-per-gallon excise tax on gasoline) was defeated 139-133 in a confidence vote. Pierre Trudeau (who had announced his retirement as Liberal leader after the 1979 loss but reversed the decision) won the resulting February 18, 1980 federal election decisively. Clark led the Progressive Conservatives in opposition until losing the 1983 leadership review to Brian Mulroney. He served as Mulroney's External Affairs Minister and Constitutional Affairs Minister from 1984 to 1991 and 1991 to 1993, then returned to lead a much-diminished Progressive Conservative Party from 1998 to 2003. He retired from politics in 2004.
Why this matters for your test
Joe Clark's brief tenure shows the fragility of minority governments in the Canadian Westminster system. Recognising his 1979 election win and the December 1979 confidence-vote defeat gives candidates two specific anchors.
Source: Library and Archives Canada; Dictionary of Canadian Biography
