Former Prime Minister Joe Clark’s second incarnation as leader of the national Progressive Conservative Party ended on this date in 2003. The next day the party’s leadership convention was held with Peter MacKay’s election as Clark’s replacement. Clark had led the party since 1998, his second stint in the role as he had been national leader previously, from 1976-1983.
MacKay’s reign in Clark’s old job, however, was short-lived. He soon entered into talks with Canadian Alliance leader Stephen J. Harper. By December of 2003 the two parties would merge to form the new Conservative Party of Canada.
Arthur Milnes is an accomplished public historian and award-winning journalist. He was research assistant on The Rt. Hon. Brian Mulroney’s best-selling Memoirs and also served as a speechwriter to then-Prime Minister Stephen Harper and as a Fellow of the Queen’s Centre for the Study of Democracy under the leadership of Tom Axworthy. A resident of Kingston, Ontario, Milnes serves as the in-house historian at the 175 year-old Frontenac Club Hotel.