JOE

From today's Globe:

Members of Parliament paid tribute to the career of former prime minister Joe Clark Thursday.

In his last Commons speech, the outgoing member for Calgary Centre thanked his constituents, joked about the fall of his own short-lived minority government in 1979, and issued a warning to Prime Minister Paul Martin.

“I learned [the night the government fell] that just because a member of the Liberal Party might be worn out and battered and beaten, he can still come back to haunt you,” Mr. Clark said.

Mr. Clark received individual congratulation from a steady stream of former colleagues and political opponents in the House who walked across the floor to shake his hand.

“He is a House of Commons man,” said long-time NDP MP Bill Blaikie. “He did the nation's business in this chamber, and not across the street.”

But Mr. Clark ends his career in the political wilderness, sitting as an independent, separate from the benches of the Conservative Party.

New Brunswick MP John Herron, who, like Mr. Clark, did not join in the merger which united the Progressive Conservative Party and the Canadian Alliance, praised Mr. Clark as a man “who, in every situation, tried to make the big play.”

The House also rose to applaud Mr. Clark's wife, Maureen McTeer, and their daughter, Catherine Clark, who were seated in the Commons gallery.

Mr. Clark was first elected in 1972 and twice served as leader of the Progressive Conservative Party. He represented four constituencies in two provinces during the course of his career.