The little guy from
Shawinigan, as Jean Chretien liked to
style himself, has been perhaps the most
successful politician on the federal
scene in Canada in the last 60 years. He
has been intimately involved with all of
the Liberal administrations since
Pearson and was instrumental in bringing
the constitution back to Canada. He was
also elected to an unprecedented, for
modern times, 3 majority terms.
Chrétien was born to
Marie Boisvert and Wellie Chrétien, a
paper mill machinist, on January 11th,
1934. He was the 18th of 19 children at
a time with high child mortality rates,
10 of his siblings died in infancy.
He became interested in
politics at an early age and living in
Quebec, that meant the Liberal Party. He
joined the party in his teens and worked
hard for local candidates and members of
Parliament. He was accepted to Laval
University and as a young Liberal became
the president of the Liberal Club.
He graduated with a Law degree in 1958
and set up practice in Shawinigan.
He decide to run for
Parliament in 1963 in the riding of
Saint-Maurice Laflèche and with almost
no English in a mainly French
constituency, was elected and entered
Parliament expecting to fight for French
Canadian rights against the English
majority. He quickly realized that
Canada was a big, diverse country and
that as a member of Parliament he would
need to consider all parts of the
country and all people.
His hard working, and
practical approach to politics helped
him gain recognition in the party and in
1965 he was appointed Parliamentary
Secretary to Prime Minister Lester
Pearson. He then served under Sharp in
Finance giving him important exposure to
the budgetary side of government. When
Pierre Trudeau was chosen as Liberal
leader and Prime Minister in 1968 he
appointed Chrétien as Minister of
National Revenue.
The Four Prime
Ministers
Trudeau called an
election for June 1968 and after winning
a majority appointed Chrétien to the
Ministry of Indian Affairs and Northern
Development. He quickly realized that
the native peoples were faced with
immense problems and challenges and in a
1969 white paper, which Chrétien wrote
the preface for, the abolition of the
Indian Act was recommended and a whole
new approach in dealing with the issues
suggested. The entrenched interested of
the existing status quo resisted the
recommendations of the White Paper and
it's suggestions were eventually
abandoned, but the process introduced
Chrétien to bureaucratic and interest
group inertia and how to deal with it in
the future, which would prove to be
invaluable during the repatriation of
the constitution negotiations.
Chrétien became a trusted
advisor to Trudeau during the 1970
October Crisis when he encouraged the
invocation of the War Measures Act and
the use of Federal power to protect the
stability of the country. He quickly
moved up the ladder when he was
appointed the treasury Board in 1974,
was appointed Minister of Industry,
Trade and Commerce in 1976 and then
became the first French Canadian Prime
Minister in 1977.
After the brief
Conservative interlude of 1979/80 he was
appointed Minister of Justice and
Attorney General, which placed him in he
middle of two of the most important
events of the Trudeau years, the Quebec
referendum and the patriation of the
constitution. In 1982 he moved to the
Ministry of Energy Mines and Resources
and was ready to challenge for the
leadership of the Liberal Party once
Trudeau stepped down which was widely
expected.
Trudeau stepped down in
1984 and the Chrétien's main opponent
for the leadership of the party was John
Turner who was heavily favoured by the
Liberal establishment for several
reasons including the tradition of
alternating between French and English
leaders. Chrétien lost the race to
Turner and although Chrétien was given
many prominent assignments in cabinet,
the tensions between the two finally
convinced Chrétien to leave politics and
enter the private sector.
From 1986 to 1989
he worked in the corporate
world, wrote his memoirs and
planned his comeback. When
Turner stepped down in 1989,
Chrétien ran again for the
leadership and in a tight race
with Paul Martin, emerged as the
new leader of the Liberal Party.
His opposition to the Meech Lake
agreement which was in accord
with his and Trudeau's political
stance on Quebec's role in
Confederation, was responsible
for his loss of some support in
Quebec.
Chrétien was
elected in 1990 in a by-election
from the riding of Beauséjour,
New Brunswick and took his seat
in the House of Commons once
again. He began to rebuild the
party and with the introduction
of the unpopular Goods and
Services Tax by the Mulroney
government, the departure of
many of the French Canadian
nationalist from the
Conservatives and the failure of
both the Meech Lake Accord and
the Charlottetown Agreement, it
looked like the Liberals would
stand a good chance at regaining
power in the next election.
In February of 1993
Mulroney announced his retirement and in
June the Conservatives took a gamble by
electing Kim Campbell as the first women
leader of the Conservatives and as
the New Prime Minister. By August
Campbell was leading in most polls and
called and election for the fall. On
September 19 the Liberals released their
now famous Red Book which laid out
everything they would do if elected. It
promised a better way of charging the
GST, a new look at NAFTA, reform of the
unemployment system and fiscal
responsibility which return Canada to a
balanced budget each year. The impact of
the move was immense and the Liberal
climb up the poll numbers began to
accelerate.
As the Conservative lead
evaporate the Conservatives decided to
launch some attack ads against Chretien
personally who lagged behind Campbell in
approval ratings. One of the ads mocked
his facial paralysis which caused an
immediate storm of controversy and
outrage. Any chance the at the
Conservatives might win the election
were now gone and the best they could
hope for was a minority Liberal
government.
On the night of October
25th, 1993 the polls closed and the
results began to come in from across the
country.
As the results began to come in on election
night, the vote for the Liberals became a
landslide. The final results were Liberals - 177
seats, Bloc = 54 seats, Reform Party 52 seats, NDP 9 seats, Progressive Conservatives 2 seats
and others - 1. The old Progressive Conservative
Party had been destroyed and would not
re-emerge to fight again until a merger
of right wing forces finally resulted in
a new party 3 elections later.
On November
4th 1993 Chretien was sworn in as
Canada's 20th Prime Minister. He
appointed his strongest opponent in the
leadership race, Paul Martin, as the
Minister of Finance and like the Clinton
administration in the U.S. made deficit
reduction job one. Transfer payments to
the provinces were greatly reduced,
social programs cut back, taxes
maximized and additional revenue sources
maximized. The deficit in 1993 was $42
billion dollars which within 5 years was
eliminated and $36 billion of the debt
was also paid down. Many of government
services initially cut were restored
once the deficit was under control and
taxes were cut by over $100 billion.
Another
referendum was held in Quebec about
separation and the federalist side won
by the slimmest of margins. After that
vote Chretien introduced and passed the
Clarity Act which mandated that any
future voters would have to vote as a
clear majority on a clear question about
any issues of separation or sovereignty.
This act was upheld by the Supreme
Court.
Chretien
decided to call an election in the
spring of 1997 hoping to take advantage
of a good lead in the polls, but a
rejuvenate right wing in the form of the
Conservatives and the reform Party
gained momentum during the campaign and
the NDP picked up support in the
Maritimes, an area that was not
traditional a strength for them. The
Liberals won the election with the
barest majority and were forced to
government lightly over the next few
years. Chretien focused on reform of the
justice system and continuing to improve
the Canadian economy with budget
surpluses, reduced taxes and increased
business abroad.
The Queen awarded
Chretien The Order of Merit
By
2000, the newly elected leader,
Stockwell Day, of the new right
wing party, the Canadian Alliance,
demanded that Chretien go to the
electorate and face him an election.
Chretien, realizing that the right was
still fractured among two parties and
that the NDP and the Bloc were low in
the polls, accommodated this request,
and won a third majority government with
almost as strong a majority as his
first.
His
last term was a period of
unsettled events and after 9/11
he refused to back the U.S.
invasion of Iraq unless it was
done under a UN mandate. He was
beginning to feel pressure to
step down and let a new leader
take over and as the Sponsorship
Scandal grew in size he decided
to retire from politics and
announce that he would leave the
Prime Ministers office on
December 12th 2003. His former
Finance Minister and rival Paul
Martin replaced him on that date
after winning the Liberal
leadership convention.
Chretien says no to Iraq
Chretien went back
to work as a lawyer but had to endure the
inquiry into the Sponsorship Scandal which did
not find him guilty of any wrongdoing. He
continues to be involved in politics today as
the senior Liberal statesman and leads an active
live.
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