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Joe Clark on Alberta, a 'shallow' federal government and adversarial politics – CBC.ca

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In 1979, Joe Clark became the youngest prime minister in Canadian history, ending 16 years of Liberal rule and forming a minority Progressive Conservative government.

And though his time as prime minister was brief, Clark remained active in Canada politics — serving as a senior cabinet minister in Brian Mulroney’s government in 1984 and becoming leader of the Progressive Conservatives again in 1998.

Clark, who was born in High River, Alta., remains the only prime minister born and raised in Alberta. He told Kathleen Petty on CBC’s West of Centre podcast that in many ways, Alberta is still the place he knew well growing up.

“But like everywhere, it’s changing quite, quite dramatically,” Clark said. “And it also suffers from caricature. I think a lot of places do, but Alberta certainly does.

“We’ve always been a more progressive place than the caricature attached to us.”

  • Listen to this week’s full episode of West of Centre here:

West of Centre46:05From prime minister to statesman Joe Clark

Being a ‘full partner in the Canadian family’

Growing up, Clark’s mother was a teacher and his father and grandfather ran weekly newspapers. He recalled people like George Guy Weadick, founder of the Calgary Stampede, would often stop by the family home.

“I had the opportunity to meet large parts of the country, through the connections and the weekly newspapers,” Clark said. “I was very lucky growing up.”

Clark became involved in politics while attending the University of Alberta, going on to serve as national president of the Progressive Conservative Student Federation.

Joe Clark battles with his wooden image, his comparative obscurity, and the doomsday scenario. 2:51

After an unsuccessful bid at provincial politics in 1967, Clark eventually went on to win the leadership of the Progressive Conservative party in 1976 before becoming prime minister in 1979. 

“I don’t want to dwell on the fact as to where former prime ministers were born, but it is kind of a reflection on the weight of a region in the country,” Clark said.

“If in a country as old as ours, only two of us [including British Columbia-born Kim Campbell] were really born and raised in the specific environments of Western Canada, I think [that’s] a reality that we understand.”

Clark said he thinks Alberta has been unfairly stereotyped, which contributes to a sense among those from the province that they are not a “full partner in the Canadian family.”

In Clark’s view, the current Liberal government has not taken Alberta’s distinctive interests as seriously as they should.

“I think earlier parties were more inclined to be able to speak to and engage with people who disagreed with them than is the case now,” he said. “The Liberal Party is naturally looking to where it can win seats. And it thinks that there are some sort of atypical Alberta ridings where it might have a chance.

“But I haven’t seen much effort to engage the whole range of legitimate Alberta interests as seriously as they have in some other provinces.”

Criticisms of current leadership

In 2003, Clark said he would not join the new Conservative Party of Canada after the Progressive Conservatives and the Canadian Alliance merged.

As the 2004 election approached, he said he would rather see Prime Minister Paul Martin lead the country than Conservative Leader Stephen Harper.

“In those choices, I would be extremely worried about Mr. Harper. I personally would prefer to go with the devil we know,” he said at the time.

In the 2004 election, Joe Clark says Conservative Leader Stephen Harper is a dangerous choice for voters. 2:45

Speaking to West of Centre, Clark said he hoped that Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole could make his party a national party again, and criticized the current federal government.

“I think that the present Liberal government is very shallow. It does have some strong individuals, but it is not as thoughtful or as conscientious, or as serious, in my view, as some of its predecessors were,” he said.

In Clark’s view, the current Liberal Party may claim to be progressive and internationalist, but tends to be more inclined to “statements than to action.”

“But the Liberal Party in the past, like the Progressive Conservative party in the past, used to be much broader — it used to reflect the whole of the country,” he said. “So it was a reconciling instrument in a country that always needs reconciliation.

“And I’m quite disappointed about all the parties in that sense. In fact, I think our system requires some fairly significant changes, because the world is changing faster than we are.”

WATCH | Former prime minister Joe Clark tells CBC’s West of Centre what he thinks about Canada’s current political situation:

Former prime minister Joe Clark describes what he sees as a “shallow” Liberal government and his hopes for a more national Conservative Party. 2:06

A politics of ‘us and them’

Clark told West of Centre that he’s noticed a significant change in the nature of the national political parties as of late — one that he said has an impact on the participation and contentment of the populous.

“It’s partly ideological, but there’s a real sense of ‘us and them,'” Clark said. “And there used to be a much stronger sense of ‘us.'”

When taking the view of Alberta specifically, Clark cited the opinion held in the energy industry that its interests were not being taken seriously in Ottawa.

“I had hoped that it might be possible for a range of private meetings to be held by the prime minister or others with a variety of Albertans who disagreed with them, but were not unreasonable — just to find some common ground,” Clark said.

“That may be less possible in a modern media age. Sometimes that requires a profile lower than is possible now, but I don’t have the sense that that was broadly or seriously undertaken.”

The Tories under Joe Clark win a minority, giving Canada its youngest prime minister in history. 7:08

Clark said he hoped the federal government would begin reaching out on a more regular basis, adding that Alberta had more to offer beyond the caricature it frequently inhabits.

“One element of Alberta’s concern, one important element is that they are real. The other element is that they are exacerbated when they appear to be ignored,” Clark said.

“And if we’re going to get to any kind of reconciliation, one has to talk to people with whom you disagree.”

  • Listen to the complete West of Centre podcast series right here.

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Harris tells Black churchgoers that people must show compassion and respect in their lives

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STONECREST, Ga. (AP) — Kamala Harris told the congregation of a large Black church in suburban Atlanta on Sunday that people must show compassion and respect in their daily lives and do more than just “preach the values.”

The Democratic presidential nominee’s visit to New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Stonecrest on her 60th birthday, marked by a song by the congregation, was part of a broad, nationwide campaign, known as “Souls to the Polls,” that encourages Black churchgoers to vote.

Pastor Jamal Bryant said the vice president was “an American hero, the voice of the future” and “our fearless leader.” He also used his sermon to welcome the idea of America electing a woman for the first time as president. “It takes a real man to support a real woman,” Bryant said.

“When Black women roll up their sleeves, then society has got to change,” the pastor said.

Harris told the parable of the Good Samaritan from the Gospel of Luke, about a man who was traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho and was attacked by robbers. The traveler was beaten and left bloodied, but helped by a stranger.

All faiths promote the idea of loving thy neighbor, Harris said, but far harder to achieve is truly loving a stranger as if that person were a neighbor.

“In this moment, across our nation, what we do see are some who try to deepen division among us, spread hate, sow fear and cause chaos,” Harris told the congregation. “The true measure of the strength of a leader is based on who you lift up.”

She was more somber than during her political rallies, stressing that real faith means defending humanity. She said the Samaritan parable reminds people that “it is not enough to preach the values of compassion and respect. We must live them.”

Harris ended by saying, “Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning,” as attendees applauded her.

Many in attendance wore pink to promote breast cancer awareness. Also on hand was Opal Lee, an activist in the movement to make Juneteenth a federally recognized holiday. Harris hugged her.

The vice president also has a midday stop at Divine Faith Ministries International in Jonesboro with singer Stevie Wonder, before taping an interview with the Rev. Al Sharpton that will air later Sunday on MSNBC. The schedule reflects her campaign’s push to treat every voting group like a swing state voter, trying to appeal to them all in a tightly contested election with early voting in progress.

Harris’ running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, headed to church in Saginaw, Michigan, and his wife, Gwen, was going to a service in Las Vegas.

The “Souls to the Polls” effort launched last week and is led by the National Advisory Board of Black Faith Leaders, which is sending representatives across battleground states as early voting begins in the Nov. 5 election.

“My father used to say, a ‘voteless people is a powerless people’ and one of the most important steps we can take is that short step to the ballot box,” Martin Luther King III said Friday. “When Black voters are organized and engaged, we have the power to shift the trajectory of this nation.”

On Saturday, the vice president rallied supporters in Detroit with singer Lizzo before traveling to Atlanta to focus on abortion rights, highlighting the death of a Georgia mother amid the state’s restrictive abortion laws that took effect after the U.S. Supreme Court, with three justices nominated by Donald Trump, overturned Roe v. Wade.

And after her Sunday push, she will campaign with former U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., in the suburbs of Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin.

“Donald Trump still refuses to take accountability, to take any accountability, for the pain and the suffering he has caused,” Harris said.

Harris is a Baptist whose husband, Doug Emhoff, is Jewish. She has said she’s inspired by the work of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., and influenced by the religious traditions of her mother’s native India as well as the Black Church. Harris sang in the choir as a child at Twenty Third Avenue Church of God in Oakland.

“Souls to the Polls” as an idea traces back to the Civil Rights Movement. The Rev. George Lee, a Black entrepreneur from Mississippi, was killed by white supremacists in 1955 after he helped nearly 100 Black residents register to vote in the town of Belzoni. The cemetery where Lee is buried has served as a polling place.

Black church congregations across the country have undertaken get-out-the-vote campaigns for years. In part to counteract voter suppression tactics that date back to the Jim Crow era, early voting in the Black community is stressed from pulpits nearly as much as it is by candidates.

In Georgia, early voting began on Tuesday, and more than 310,000 people voted on that day, more than doubling the first-day total in 2020. A record 5 million people voted in the 2020 presidential election in Georgia.

___

This story has been corrected to reflect that the mobilization effort launched last week, not Oct. 20.

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NDP and B.C. Conservatives locked in tight battle after rain-drenched election day

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VANCOUVER – Predictions of a close election were holding true in British Columbia on Saturday, with early returns showing the New Democrats and the B.C. Conservatives locked in a tight battle.

Both NDP Leader David Eby and Conservative Leader John Rustad retained their seats, while Green Leader Sonia Furstenau lost to the NDP’s Grace Lore after switching ridings to Victoria-Beacon Hill.

However, the Greens retained their place in the legislature after Rob Botterell won in Saanich North and the Islands, previously occupied by party colleague Adam Olsen, who did not seek re-election.

It was a rain-drenched election day in much of the province.

Voters braved high winds and torrential downpours brought by an atmospheric river weather system that forced closures of several polling stations due to power outages.

Residents faced a choice for the next government that would have seemed unthinkable just a few months ago, between the incumbent New Democrats led by Eby and Rustad’s B.C. Conservatives, who received less than two per cent of the vote last election

Among the winners were the NDP’s Housing Minister Ravi Kahlon in Delta North and Attorney General Niki Sharma in Vancouver-Hastings, as well as the Conservatives Bruce Banman in Abbotsford South and Brent Chapman in Surrey South.

Chapman had been heavily criticized during the campaign for an old social media post that called Palestinian children “inbred” and “time bombs.”

Results came in quickly, as promised by Elections BC, with electronic vote tabulation being used provincewide for the first time.

The election authority expected the count would be “substantially complete” by 9 p.m., one hour after the close of polls.

Six new seats have been added since the last provincial election, and to win a majority, a party must secure 47 seats in the 93-seat legislature.

There had already been a big turnout before election day on Saturday, with more than a million advance votes cast, representing more than 28 per cent of valid voters and smashing the previous record for early polling.

The wild weather on election day was appropriate for such a tumultuous campaign.

Once considered a fringe player in provincial politics, the B.C. Conservatives stand on the brink of forming government or becoming the official Opposition.

Rustad’s unlikely rise came after he was thrown out of the Opposition, then known as the BC Liberals, joined the Conservatives as leader, and steered them to a level of popularity that led to the collapse of his old party, now called BC United — all in just two years.

Rustad shared a photo on social media Saturday showing himself smiling and walking with his wife at a voting station, with a message saying, “This is the first time Kim and I have voted for the Conservative Party of BC!”

Eby, who voted earlier in the week, posted a message on social media Saturday telling voters to “grab an umbrella and stay safe.”

Two voting sites in Cariboo-Chilcotin in the B.C. Interior and one in Maple Ridge in the Lower Mainland were closed due to power cuts, Elections BC said, while several sites in Kamloops, Langley and Port Moody, as well as on Hornby, Denman and Mayne islands, were temporarily shut but reopened by mid-afternoon.

Some former BC United MLAs running as Independents were defeated, with Karin Kirkpatrick, Dan Davies, Coralee Oakes and Tom Shypitka all losing to Conservatives.

Kirkpatrick had said in a statement before the results came in that her campaign had been in touch with Elections BC about the risk of weather-related disruptions, and was told that voting tabulation machines have battery power for four hours in the event of an outage.

— With files from Brenna Owen

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 19, 2024.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

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Breakingnews: B.C. Conservative Leader John Rustad elected in his riding

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VANDERHOOF, B.C. – British Columbia Conservative Leader John Rustad has been re-elected in his riding of Nechako Lakes.

Rustad was kicked out of the Opposition BC United Party for his support on social media of an outspoken climate change critic in 2022, and last year was acclaimed as the B.C. Conservative leader.

Buoyed by the BC United party suspending its campaign, and the popularity of Pierre Poilievre’s federal Conservatives, Rustad led his party into contention in the provincial election.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

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