What if Joe Clark won a majority in the 1979 Canadian election.?

As it says on the tin. What would be the effects? What would happen to Quebec, the constitution, the economy and the budget? Who would be the next Liberal leader and would they beat Clark in 1983 or 1984? Would the U.S.-Canada FTA be prevented if delayed one or two decades? How about GST? What if?
 
re: Quebec...

Clark was the guy who talked about Canada as a "community of communities", a concept which had some resonance with the soft-nationalist elements in Quebec(cynical take on that: the Alberta community gets to drag peasoupers behind pickup trucks, the Quebec community gets to beat anglophones with baseball bats, with no federal interference in sight).

So, unlike Diefenbaker, Clark did actually have a vision of Quebec-within-Canada with which he could approach the Quebec electorate during a referendum. Problem is, if his majority doesn't include a contingent of highly respected figures from Quebec, he's severely handicapped in terms of being able to sell it to the public there. What impact this has on the referendum, I don't know.

It is a little ironic that Clark's view of federalism was probably closer to what was then emerging as the consensus in Quebec(as exemplified by le beau risque a few years later) than was Trudeau, but Trudeau at that point still had more cultural savvy in the province to sell national-unity.

re: the Constitution...

I don't see Clark doing anything, besides maybe just a simple repatriation, and even that, probably only as a bone to anti-imperial sentiment in Quebec during the referendum. Any talk of a Charter Of Rights would outrage his redneck base in western Canada, and be looked on warily by almost everyone who mattered in Quebec, unless it contained some proto-Meech style deference to Quebec as a unique province.

Heck, even without Quebec weighing in, it would only take about one meeting with Alberta backbenchers screaming about "goddam gay French turban criminal rights" for Clark to put the kibosh on any plans for implementing a Charter.
 
Clark was an awful leader during the 1979-1980 period. He blew most of his political capital in months and tried to govern with a majority despite not having one. If you actually give him a majority win the first year or two could be either on par with OTL or worse. Unless Clark changed his approach he's still going to have bad relations with both Premiers Lougheed and Davis, who won't help him out in 1983 unless Clark radically changes his approach.

The only reason Clark changed his approach was because he lost in 1980, which in some ways brought him back to reality and made him a better leader, even despite his defeat at the hands of Mulroney.

Clark with a majority could see a serious leadership challenge of some sort, it could see him change direction by 1981 or at least before the next election. However unlike Mulroney he doesn't have the electoral cushion of Quebec to off put loses in the rest of the country. Unless something unexpected happens, Clark loses to the Linerals, who have probably chosen an anglophone to win back English Canada (who they had lost under Truseau).

Clark loses, probably John Turner wins, if the next election is fought on free trade then the Tories might get back in, maybe.
 
Do you think that free trade would still occur, or would it be pushed back to the late 1990s or 2000s?

Well, the official hisstory on that is that the MacDonald Commission, appointed by Trudau, recommended free-trade when it released its report in 1984, and then Mulroney acted on that.

Would we still get free trade without the MacDonald Commission? My guess would be yes, or something more or less like it. By the 1980s, I think the business sector was largely pro-"free market", and the PC Party, despite its protectionist history, was by that point very much in tune with what business wanted.
 
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Donald MacDonald would be Liberal leader ITTL, so yes free trade is happening a bit earlier than OTL.

If it's MacDonald as Liberal leader, I wonder if he is the type to hold on to power. The easiest result is a liberal majority in 1983, so MacDonald faces someone like Mulroney, possibly a different Red Tory in 1987. I'm interested in who the PCs would pick if Clark resigned of his own free will, thus eliminating Mulroney's main pillar of anti-Clark and not necessarily anti-Red Tory delegates. A serious anti Quebec candidate like Crombie or Flora could emerge.
 
Mulroney is still the obvious choice. The only way for stable PC government is through Quebec, which only Mulroney can do. If the economy goes similarly to OTL (especially since MacDonald will probably implement similar economic policies), then '91 should be a Tory victory.
 
Maybe. I'm just saying that without Clark there will be a significant push by Flora's people to block him since she would be a prominent and possibly successful member of the Clark government as Secretary of State for External Affairs, a position which would keep her far away from any domestic problems.

A battle between Flora and Mulroney will probably end with the latter winning, but such a win wouldn't be guaranteed.
 
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