Joe Clark on the accomplishments and challenges facing Mulcair, Trudeau

OTTAWA — Sizing up Canada’s current political leaders, former Progressive Conservative prime minister Joe Clark says NDP leader Tom Mulcair is shining as Opposition leader—but how that performance could translate to leading the country remains unknown, he said.

“I think that Tom Mulcair is the best Opposition leader since I was around, and he’s been very effective in the House (of Commons)” Clark, who served as prime minister for less than a year between 1979 and 1980, said in an interview on The West Block with Tom Clark. “Will that translate into his capacity as a prime minister, his attractiveness? I don’t know. But he’s performing one institutional function very well.”

As for the Commons’ newest leader, Liberal Justin Trudeau, his past wins in Papineau, Que. tell a rousing tale, Clark said. But the challenge for Trudeau, he said, will be attracting enough new supporters and candidates to help rebuild the Liberal brand.

Still, Trudeau deserves credit for what he’s already accomplished, said the former prime minister, who recently released a book titled How We Lead: Canada in a Century of Change.

“I knew Trudeau the father better than Trudeau the son,” admitted Clark, whose term in office was bookended by Pierre Trudeau.

“But what I know of the son is that he deserves to be judged on his own. I’m somebody who understands political courage. He ran in a very tough constituency. He won it. He won it again when nobody else around him was winning.  He obviously has attraction to the rest of the country.”

Clark drew a parallel between what he views as Trudeau’s challenge and what he was able to accomplish in the 1979 election.

He pointed to the by-elections preceding that election in which the Progressive Conservatives were able to get some key players into the Commons.

Robert de Cotret, one of a few francophones in the caucus, was elected in 1978, but lost his seat in the general election the following year. Still, Clark appointed de Cotret to the Senate and handed him the industry file, bringing the Ottawa native into his inner circle.

Clark also pointed to David Crombie, who served as Toronto mayor before moving into federal politics, where he would serve for 10 years and hold a number of high profile cabinet portfolios.

Surrounding himself with people like de Cotret and Crombie—people with different strengths than his—was what allowed Clark to build a party, he said.

“Can (Trudeau) do that? That’s a question for the future, but our choices are not as bleak as they might seem in the country,” he said. “What I hope will happen is there will be a change in the atmosphere that will be … it will be a politics that looks forward and tries to build things rather than a divisive politics.”