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Paul Martin,
Canada's 21st Prime Minister, may have been the
most successful Finance Minister - Prime
Minister combination in the history of Canada.
Although he was Prime Minister for just over two
years it was his economic accomplishments during
his and the Chretien era that have cemented his
place in the development of Canada.
Paul Martin
was born, in Windsor Ontario, into a political
home on August 28th, 1938 with a father, Paul
Martin Sr, who was a Liberal member of the House
of Commons for over 33 years, served in 4
Liberals governments as a Cabinet Minister and
ran for the leadership of the Liberal Party in
1967.
Paul martin
went to school at Ecole Garneau, a French
immersion school in Ottawa and then attended the
University of Ottawa, the University of Toronto
where he graduated with a B.A. in philosophy. He
then entered the faculty of Law at U of T and
graduated in 1965. Martin went to work for Power
Corp and CSL and managed to reverse and rebuild
the companies. By July of 1981, Martin and his
partner were able to purchase CSL outright from
Power Corp.
Martin had
been disappointed with the Canadian Government
attitude towards business and in the way the
public finances were handled. By the mid 1980's
he had made his initial moves towards a
political career and in the 1988 Federal
election he threw his hat into the ring and was
elected Liberal MP for the riding of
LaSalle—Émard, which he would represent until
2008. Martin's ambition was to succeed John
Turner as Liberal leaser and when Turner stepped
down, he was ready to run and toured the country
with the other Liberal candidates, campaigning
hard. The real decision came down to Chretien,
who many believed was the next in line and
should have been chosen instead of Turner in the
previous leadership convention, and Martin, the
young newcomer, with the business community
behind him. Chretien won the leadership race and
although Martin was named Minister of Finance
when the Liberals won the 1993 election, there
remained a bitter animosity between two.
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As Finance
Minister, Martin quickly went to work and made
the tough decisions that previous Liberal and
Conservative Governments had failed to make. He
cut back on transfer payments to the provinces,
reduced spending on many social programs, froze
increase on most others and reformed the CCP in
order to increase pension amounts and increase
revenues, and increased some taxes. The results
were financially spectacular. A yearly $2
Billion deficit was eliminated by the fourth
year with ever increasing budget surpluses after
that. |
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He then began to
pay down the national debt which
reduced Canada's debt to GDP
ration each year and eventually
led to the best ratio of all G7
countries with a reduction from
about 70% to around 50% by the
late 1990's. |
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By the
beginning of Jean Chretien's third term, Martin
and his supports were becoming impatient with
waiting for their turn to govern and in 2002
Martin resigned or was fired as Finance Minister
which freed him up to work towards unseating
Chretien and taking the leadership. In order to
head off a leadership vote which he would like
lose, Chretien announce that he would retire in
the Spring of 2003 and after a relatively easy
leadership campaign. won and in December of 2003
became the 21st Prime Minister. |
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Martin called
an election for June 2004 and as the election
drew close, a fractured Liberal party, what
became known as the sponsorship scandal, which
accused Liberals of diverting money to
themselves and supporters, a newly united
Conservative opposition and constant attacks in
Quebec form the Bloc, began to erode Liberal
support. Martin was able to reverse the slide
and by election day manage to hold on to power
with a minority government. |
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The minority
status made governing much more difficult but he
quickly negotiated new revenue sharing
agreements with the provinces, passed a same sex
marriage bill, negotiated the Kelowna agreement
which addresses aboriginal issues and instituted
a $41 billion dollar program to improve health
care across the country.
Martin
struggled with several Conservative attempts to
force a non-confidence vote and only by using
the Parliamentary rules, recruiting Belinda
Stronach and gaining the support of an alienated
Conservative MP Chuck Cadman, was he able to
hold onto power. With the release of the Gomery
report which cleared Martin of any wrongdoing or
knowledge of wrongdoing, his poll number should
have gone up but the continuing impression of
Liberal corruption hurt them and on November
28th, 2005 a vote of non-confidence brought the
Liberals down. An election was called for
January 26th, 2006.
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The 2005/06
campaign was badly run by the Liberals and with
constant reminders of the sponsorship scandal
and then the announcement by the RCMP of new
probes the Liberals went from a lead in the
polls, to a free fall in opinion and b the time
election day arrived, Steven Harper managed to
win a minority government for the Conservatives.
Martin
announced his retirement from the leadership of
the Liberal party on election night and quickly
moved out of the political spotlight. His
failures as a minority Prime Minister were more
then offset by his financial management of the
countries affairs from 1994 to 2006 and in
retirement he has kept busy with various
projects and still has considerable influence
over Liberal party economic policy.
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