Joe Clark: A Wise Fool

The Economist has asked recently for examples of “wise fools.” James I is their classic example.

The type is the opposite of the idiot savant. An idiot savant looks stupid, but uncannily seems to do clever things. A wise fool looks clever, but uncannily does stupid things.

I think Canada has a truly world-class example: Joe Clark.

Joe was a complete unknown, “Joe Who,” when he won the Tory leadership in 1976.

As it turned out, there was a reason.

Good old Joe loved words like "specificity." On a visit to a farm, he asked the pastoralist, "What is the totality of your acreage?"

His wife Maureen was quoted, in a piece just after he won the leadership, with the tactful comment "Joe and I don't suffer fools gladly."

I wonder how they get on?

He won because he was unknown: all other candidates has too many negatives. And he won the next election on the strength of not being Pierre Trudeau.

Nine months after winning power, Joe forced an election on a raised gasoline tax. Good move. Everybody expected him to lose. And he did.

When his leadership then became shaky, he called a party vote, and declared he needed not just a majority, but 66%. He came in just slightly below that figure, and had to resign. Even though he was first choice for leader. Brilliance.

To his credit, Joe survived the Mulroney years as almost the only senior member of cabinet with his reputation intact. Still, his time in cabinet will be most remembered for a failure: the Charlottetown Accord, which was supposed to amend the constitution to satisfy Quebec. It was rejected in a national referendum, including in Quebec. Many think it led to the collapse of the Tory Party a year later.

Then, instead of retiring from public life with dignity, he came back years later, in 1998, to lead the Tory Party on the edge of oblivion. Nobody but Joe thought he could save the Tory Party, and he didn't. He did nothing but tread water for them, in the end, but managed to barely retain their official party status and thus hold off a union of the right, keeping the Liberals effortlessly in power for years. His last hurrah was to shear off five MPs from the Canadian Alliance during a leadership crisis. They abandoned him a few months later.

When the Tories and the Alliance finally merged, in 2004, Clark declared his support for the Liberals.

Arguably, Canada might have been a far different country without Joe Clark. And, arguably, a better one.

As somebody once said of him, "ambition without talent is a terrible thing."