The national Progressive Conservative leadership race was in full swing on this date in 1983. Former Prime Minister Joe Clark, who had called the leadership race after receiving the support of only 67 percent of delegates to a party convention earlier in the year, was in Pembroke on April 8, 1983 in hopes of swaying local Tories to his cause.
“There is a sense of pessimism in this country, people are losing faith and it is up to us to renew the strength of the federal system,” Clark said that day. “There is a great deal wrong with the Liberal party, but there is nothing wrong with Canada. The potential of this country has been blunted again and again by the Liberals. This has got to stop; we must stop it. We can be a moderate and modern force. We must be, we are a national party.”
Pembroke Observer reporter Sean Chase recalled the Clark visit in a feature story that appeared in 2013. You can read it in full at this link: https://www.pembrokeobserver.com/2013/06/13/recalling-joe-clarks-1983-visit-to-pembroke
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.