From Trudeau to Plain Joe

The Tories win a narrow victory, but they intend to govern like a majority

He had been Canada's Prime Minister for more than eleven years, governing his nation longer than any other contemporary leader in the West. He had become a symbol of Canadian federalism who fought hard against the separatist yearnings of his fellow French Canadians in his native province of Quebec (see box). Swept to power on a wave of "Trudeaumania," he had once seemed the very model of a philosopher-statesman, blessed with an impressive intellect and an acerbic wit--not to mention a sensuous young wife. But last week Pierre Elliott Trudeau, 59, who had served three times as Canada's chief executive, was narrowly defeated in an election that he had suggested would decide whether his nation would remain one country or risk division into English-and French-speaking enclaves.

The man who ended the Trudeau era is Joe Clark, the little-known leader of the Progressive Conservative Party. At 39, Clark will become Canada's youngest Prime Minister ever and its first Tory leader since John Diefenbaker was defeated by Lester Pearson in 1963. Clark faces the most difficult challenge that has confronted Canada in the 112 years since confederation: reconciling a nation that has never quite come to grips with its divided past.

The rift between French and English Canada, between its industrialized center and its resource-rich west, was all too evident as the votes rolled in last week for the 282 seats in the newly enlarged Parliament (up from 264). Canada's 14.9 million voters divided along linguistic lines; French-speaking voters overwhelmingly supported Trudeau's Liberals, while most of the 60.2% of the population that claims English as its first or only language backed Clark's Conservatives. The result was a Tory plurality in Parliament: 136 seats for the Conservatives, 114 for the Liberals, 26 for the mildly socialist New Democratic Party, six for the rightist, rural Social Credit Party.

The returns were watched with an unusual interest in the U.S., which has a natural concern about the political stability of a country that is not only its neighbor but also a key supplier of oil, natural gas and other raw materials. In recent years Washington has been jittery about Quebec's volatile separatist movement and has privately applauded Trudeau's efforts to control it. State Department officials expect no significant changes in U.S.-Canada relations as a result of Clark's victory. But they acknowledge that it will take some time for the new Prime Minister to achieve the warm personal rapport that Trudeau had with Jimmy Carter.

The polarization was reflected in the province-by-province tallies. The Liberals held their own in the impoverished prov inces of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland. In Quebec, Trudeau easily recaptured his home riding (district) in Montreal, and the Liberals won a smashing victory. A stunning 61.9% of the popular vote and 67 of the province's 75 parliamentary seats fell into Liberal hands.

Trudeau's hopes collapsed in Ontario, Canada's richest, most populous province, where the Tories won 57 seats to the Liberals' 32. Sighed Alastair Gillespie, Trudeau's Energy Minister, as he contemplated the defeat of 13 of Trudeau's 31 Cabinet ministers: "The tide went out."

Thanks largely to their huge majority in Quebec, the Liberals outpolled the Tories 39.9% to 36.1% in the popular vote --but the parliamentary totals were the ones that counted. Early Wednesday morning, Trudeau addressed 1,000 dejected supporters in Ottawa's Chateau Laurier hotel. "I think I will be a pretty good leader of the opposition..." he began. Interrupted by applause, he never finished the sentence.

The narrow Tory margin suggested that Canadian voters were tired of Trudeau but uncertain about Clark's ability to handle the country's problems. The economy has gone slack; inflation is nearly 10%, and unemployment hovers at 8%.

An acrimonious debate over the shape of a new constitution, which would replace the British North America Act as the country's fundamental charter, centers on the distribution of power between the provinces and the federal government in Ottawa. Western Canadians feel that their interests have too long been ignored or overlooked by Ottawa and want a larger say in the nation's affairs. Overriding everything, of course, is the issue of separatism in Quebec, and Premier Levesque's plan to hold a referendum on a new form of "sovereignty-association" between his province and the rest of Canada.

The Liberal strategy was to depict Trudeau as the only leader with enough depth and experience to turn the economy around, maintain the authority of the central government and keep Quebec from breaking away. "In every important area of policy, Joe Clark doesn't know what the heck he is talking about," claimed Trudeau. Putting it more bluntly, one Trudeau aide told TIME Ottawa Bureau Chief John Scott: "The Conservatives' bottom line is that it's time for a change. Our bottom line is that Joe Clark is a nerd."

At times Clark did little to dispel that mage. In an appeal to Jewish voters in Toronto, Clark grandly promised that he would move the Canadian embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem--a move that would complicate Ottawa's relations with the Arab world. Clark's handlers were so leery of verbal miscues that they limited his appearances to small groups and friendly audiences. They also shrewdly declined to put forward detailed proposals that Trudeau, an unmatched debater, could pick apart. One exception: a highly popular plan for partial tax deductions for home mortgage interest payments and local property taxes. Clark also advocated sharp tax cuts that would create a "stimulative deficit" substantially larger than the current $13 billion.

For his part, Clark attacked Trudeau for his confrontational style. "Every time the provincial governments come together with Ottawa under Mr. Trudeau, there is conflict," he declared in Sydney, Nova Scotia. "Nothing happens. So the signal goes out to Quebec that the rest of the country isn't interested in change. The fact is, the rest of the country is very interested in change." Although Clark is one of the few Tory politicians with a good command of French, those conciliatory words had scant appeal in Quebec.

The disastrous Tory showing in that province presents Clark with his most delicate problem, putting together a Cabinet.

By tradition, Canadian Cabinets are composed of ministers from every province; Quebec usually gets eight or ten of the 30 or so portfolios. Since only two Tories were elected from Quebec, Clark may invoke an obscure constitutional provision that permits him to expand the appointive Senate, which is closer in function to Britain's House of Lords than its American namesake. He could then name two leading Quebeckers to the upper house, making them eligible for the Cabinet. Outside Quebec, Clark can choose from a small army of talented Tories. Among them: Ontario's Flora MacDonald, known as the "Red Tory" because of her progressive social views, who may become Secretary of State for External Affairs.

Clark is in no hurry to present his legislative program. He will not call Parliament into session until late September or October, by which time he may have devised an answer to one nagging question about his economic policy: how to square his promised tax cuts with a pledge to balance the federal budget eventually. Canada has a long tradition of minority governments, including five of the past eight regimes. Clark will not seek a formal alliance with either the Social Credit Party or the leftist N.D.P. "We will govern as if we had a majority," he vowed confidently last week. "I expect that the opposition will want to give the new government a fair chance to present our program and bring that program through Parliament." Indeed, it would take a combined vote of all three opposition parties to topple Clark's government, and such unity is unlikely.

One question is how long Pierre Trudeau will remain as opposition leader before turning over command of his party to someone else. Trudeau ran an uneven campaign. He sometimes seemed distracted and unsure, perhaps sensing that his time was running out. Part of his visible strain was undoubtedly caused by the antics of his estranged wife Margaret, who typically boogied on election night in New York's Studio 54 disco. Some Canadians may have held Margaret against him; the majority surely felt that Trudeau, a very private man, had suffered with stoic dignity the intimate disclosures of her tawdry autobiography.

"I never thought I would transform Canada," Trudeau once said, and of course he did not. Yet he leaves office knowing that French-speaking Canadi ans during his regime had wielded real power in Ottawa, and that real progress had been made in distributing the wealth of his country more fairly between its richer and poorer sections. He presided over the completion of one of the world's most comprehensive social security systems, gave Canada an aggressive and sometimes imaginative voice in foreign policy (Ottawa recognized Peking long before Washington did) and foresightedly reduced his country's dependence on foreign oil. His overall economic record, though, was unimpressive, and he notably failed to control government spending. And the battle he fought to keep Quebec within Canada will now have to be carried on by Joe Clark.

Trudeau's proud motto, which he likes to quote, is "Reason over passion." Canadians may well remember their quick-tempered former leader for his breaches of that standard rather than for his observance of it. After all, could anyone easily forget a politician who surrendered office with these soft, sad words: "With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it's still a beautiful world"?

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