Clark obtained a B.A. in history (1960) and an M.A. in political science (1973) from the University of Alberta and taught political science there from 1965 to 1967. He had been active in politics since 1957 in support of the Progressive Conservative Party; from 1962 to 1965 he was national president of the Progressive Conservative Student Federation. In 1967 he directed the campaign organization that brought Peter Lougheed to power as premier of Alberta, and from 1967 to 1970 he served as executive assistant to Robert Stanfield (Stanfield, Robert L.), then the Conservative leader in the House of Commons. Clark himself was first elected to Parliament in 1972, and he was elected leader of his party in 1976.

In 1979 the Progressive Conservatives (Progressive Conservative Party of Canada) won a plurality of seats in Parliament, and Clark became head of a minority government. Only six months after he took office, however, his government fell on a budget question; in the subsequent general elections in February-March 1980, his party was defeated by the Liberals headed by Pierre Elliott Trudeau (Trudeau, Pierre Elliott). Clark served as the leader of the Progressive Conservative Party until 1983. That year he held a formal leadership-selection meeting and was defeated by Brian Mulroney (Mulroney, Brian). Clark served in Mulroney's government as secretary of state for external affairs (1984–91) and president of the Queen's Privy Council (1991–93). He also served briefly (1993) as United Nations special representative to Cyprus. In 1998 Clark was again elected leader of the Progressive Conservatives, and in 2000 he won a seat in the House of Commons, which he held until his resignation in 2004. In 2006 Clark became a professor at the Centre for Developing-Area Studies at McGill University.