Jean Chrétien: Encyclopedia II - Jean Chrétien - Prime minister

Jean Chrétien - Prime minister

In the October 1993 election, Jean Chrétien became Prime Minister of Canada by leading his party to a majority victory, ousting Prime Minister Kim Campbell and the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada. He was re-elected in the 1997 and 2000 elections. During Chrétien's term as prime minister, no party emerged as a viable challenger to the supremacy of his Liberal party, in part due to vote-splitting between the Progressive Conservative and Reform/Alliance parties.

While Brian Mulroney, Joe Clark, and Pierre Trudeau had all been relative political outsiders prior to becoming prime minister, Chrétien had over 30 years of experience within the government. This experience gave him a masterful knowledge of the Canadian Parliamentary system, and allowed Chrétien to establish a very centralized government that, although highly efficient, was also lambasted by critics as being a "friendly dictatorship" and intolerant of internal dissent.

One of Chrétien's main focuses in office was preventing the separation of the province of Quebec, which was ruled by the separatist Parti Québécois for nearly the Prime Minister's entire term. After the 1995 referendum very narrowly defeated a proposal on Quebec sovereignty, Chrétien's government passed what became known as the Clarity Act, which said that no Canadian government would acknowledge an independent Quebec nation unless a "clear majority" supported sovereignty in a referendum based on a clear question. The size of a "clear majority" was left unspecified, but Chrétien made it clear that such a majority would not be "50% plus one vote".

After the referendum there was an assassination attempt on Chrétien at 24 Sussex. The Chrétiens were prepared to defend themselves with an Inuit stone statue until the RCMP arrived.

Chrétien's government also introduced a new and far-reaching Youth Criminal Justice Act, which replaced the old Young Offenders Act, and changed the way youths were prosecuted for crimes in Canada.

In 1996, Chrétien was physically confronted by anti-poverty protester Bill Clennett at the first National Flag of Canada Day ceremony. The Prime Minister responded by putting the protestor in a chokehold and shoving him aside, before the RCMP security detail was able to react. The move was dubbed the Shawinigan Handshake by the press, after Chrétien's hometown of Shawinigan, Quebec.

In 1997, Chrétien (left) was a guest star on This Hour Has 22 Minutes as former member Rick Mercer (right) took him to lunch at a Harvey's fast food restaurant.

Following the September 11 terrorist attacks upon the United States, North American airspace was shut down and many Canadians opened up their homes to stranded travellers. Chrétien praised Operation Yellow Ribbon, saying that it was one of the ways it showed the best of Canadians in a time of tragedy for their American friends and neighbours down south. In response to those attacks, Canadian forces joined with multinational forces that invaded Afghanistan to pursue al-Qaeda forces there.

Under Chrétien, Canada did not support the US-led 2003 invasion of Iraq but was the first non-member of the US-led coalition to provide significant financial aid to the post-war reconstruction effort, relative to Canada's size. Chrétien's reasoning was that the war lacked UN Security Council sanction; while not a member of the Security Council, Canada nevertheless attempted to build a consensus for a resolution authorizing the use of force after a short (two to three month) extension to UN weapon inspections in Iraq. (Critics also noted that, while in opposition, he had also opposed the first US-led Gulf War.) Although criticism from right-wing opposition was vocal, the move proved popular with the Canadian public in general. In December of 2003, it emerged that Chrétien's government had prepared plans for Canada to send as many as 800 Canadian troops to Iraq if UN Security Council had authorized it; however, a UN request for an increased deployment of Canadian peacekeepers to Afghanistan removed this option from the table. This led some of Chrétien's anti-war critics on the left to accuse the Prime Minister of never really being fully opposed to the war.

In October 2003, Chrétien, who supported decriminalization of marijuana in Canada, raised eyebrows with comments concerning his plans to smoke marijuana after his retirement. "I don't know what is marijuana," he said. "Perhaps I will try it when it will no longer be criminal. I will have my money for my fine and a joint in the other hand." While these comments were widely understood as being a friendly joke between Chrétien and a Winnipeg Free Press reporter, many found them unfunny as Chrétien seemed to trivialize an illegal activity.

Chrétien also benefitted significantly from a divided and ineffective opposition during his term as Prime Minister, facing eight different leaders of the opposition, and was sometimes viewed by Canadians as remaining in power solely because of a lack of alternatives. However, he also had an undeniably strong gut instinct for reading the mood of the Canadian electorate, and he successfully used this skill to defuse most of the controversies his government faced.

Chrétien's government was re-elected twice, in the 1997 and 2000 federal elections. This has made him one of the few Canadian Prime Ministers to serve three back-to-back terms. During his tenure as Prime Minister a $42 billion deficit was eliminated, five consecutive budget surpluses were recorded, $36 billion in debt was paid down, and taxes were cut by $100 billion (cumulatively) over 5 years, making it the largest tax cut in Canadian history. There were, however, undeniable costs associated with this endeavor. Some of these costs took the form of reduced government services. This was most noticeable in the health care sector, as major reductions in federal funding to the provinces meant significant cuts in service delivery. Moreover, there were cuts in government services across the board, affecting the operations and achievement of the mandate of most federal departments.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Prime minister", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki