Jean Chretien

At 90 years old, Jean Chretien physical status not available right now. We will update Jean Chretien's height, weight, eye color, hair color, build, and measurements.

Early political career

Chrétien served at Alexandre Gélinas and Joe Lafond, a Shawinigan company, until he was first elected in Canada's House of Commons as a Liberal from the riding of Saint-Maurice–Laflèche in 1963. For only eight years of the next 41 years, he portrayed this Shawinigan-based riding, renamed Saint-Maurice in 1968. Chrétien won the Liberal nomination for the 1963 election as the previous Liberal member of Parliament (MP) decided to withdraw. Chrétien won the election by portraying Social Credit MP Gérard Lamy as a "buffoon" who made French-Canadians look foolish. Chrétien was first described by Dalton Camp as "the man of the getaway car," a condescending analysis that was often quoted by journalists and others throughout his career, often focusing on his eventual success. During his first term, he requested and received the Finance Committee's only committee position.

He served as parliamentary secretary to Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson for a brief period of time before the 1965 election. Chrétien was angry at being overlooked when Pearson drafted Jean Marchand, Gérard Pelletier, and Pierre Trudeau into the cabinet, noting that he deserved to be promoted to the cabinet. He served for a longer period of time as the parliamentary secretary to Minister of Finance Mitchell Sharp, beginning in 1966. Sharp was to serve as Chrétien's mentor and patron, assisting him in his ascension into the ranks.

("Long Live A Free Quebec!")

Chrétien was appointed minister of national revenue in January 1968, making him a junior minister in the cabinet. Chrétien struggled to support his mentor Sharp, who aspired to lead the Liberal Party in 1968. Chrétien was out swinging his support behind the man who eventually took the contest, Pierre Trudeau, when Sharp withdrew from the sport.

Chrétien was named Minister of Indian affairs and northern development after the 1968 election. Trudeau and Chrétien were never close, as the gap between the intellectual Trudeau and the clearly non-intellectual Chrétien was too wide, but Trudeau maintained Chrétien as a "tough guy" who was able to deal with difficult assignments. Trudeau and his academic advisors in the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) dismissed Chrétien in contempt as someone who spoke French with a working class accent and whose demeanor were unpolished, but his tenacity and ability to get stuff done.

Chrétien wrote the 1969 White Paper, a call to eliminate treaties between Canada and First Nations, as well as related legislation, including the Indian Act, while in India Affairs. Critics said that the aim was to assimilate First Nations people into the general Canadian population. First Nations organisations had a strong reaction to the paper, which was later scrapped. It was the 1969 White Paper that first brought Chrétien to national attention in England. Chrétien openly challenged Indian activists with one First Nations woman shouting Chrétien, "When did we lose our identity?" Chrétien says at a press conference announcing the White Paper. "When you signed the pacties," the narrator responded, causing boos and jeers. "How can you come here and ask us to become citizens when we were here long before you?" Another woman from the Iroquois reserve in Brantford asked Chrétien. "The Crown had promised the Grand River valley to Joseph Brant in 1784, to which Chrétien had no reply." In his best-selling 1969 book The Unjust Society, Cree protester Harold Cardinal accused Chrétien and Trudeau of "cultural genocide" against the First Nations. Chrétien adopted an Inuit child from a local orphanage during a 1970 visit to the Northwest Territories to combat such hostility. Chrétien, the Indian Affairs minister, fell in love with the far north of Canada, whose beauty moved him, and he vacationed in the north every summer while holding the Indian Affairs portfolio.

Chrétien told Trudeau, "Act now, not later," during the 1970 October Crisis, when Trudeau was hesitant to invoke the War Measures Act. Eighty-five percent of Canadians approved of the change. Chrétien, who was terrified by a near-defeat in 1968, had a friend, Antonio Genest, win the Progressive Conservative (PC) nomination, followed by a brutal campaign in order to guarantee his re-election. Robert Bourassa, Quebec's Liberal premier, was a nationalist who advocated for greater federal autonomy to his province, making him Trudeau's bête noire, despite the fact that the two men openly disagreed. Chrétien intervened on the side of the Cree in 1971, when the Bourassa government began the James Bay Project to build hydro-electric dams on rivers flowing into James Bay, which was condemned by local Cree bands who claimed the land was not mined for development. Bourassa "could go to hell," Chrétien said, did not have the right to build on or flood the Cree's land, and recruited lawyers to represent the Cree in the courts. A judge ruled for the Cree in November 1973, but a few days later, a appeals court ruled for Quebec.

He was elected President of the Treasury Board in 1974, and he served as Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce from 1976 to 1976. Chrétien refused to give more money to their departments in a brusque manner. The 1970s were a period of rapid inflation, and Chrétien and Rome often clashed with public sector unions that demanded wage increases. Chrétien's "tough guy" image at a time when deficits were rising and Trudeau's government was widely seen as drifting, attracted significant attention, with many in the media naming him as one of the few individuals in the Trudeau cabinet willing to make tough decisions. Chrétien, the Trudeau government's attempt to "diversify" the economy by trading more with Asia and Europe than with the United States, while less with the US. Chrétien used to complain that the high Canadian dollar stifled his attempts to "diversify" trade, and he was known for his belief in the value of a low dollar. Chrétien, the Canadian prime minister, moved to the left, blaming tariffs on clothes imported to encourage more manufacturing in Canada and allowing the government to finance the construction of the Challenger aircraft.

Chrétien took over in 1977, following Finance Minister Donald MacDonald's departure. He was the first francophone minister of finance and remains one of only three francophones to have held the position. Chrétien's time at Finance highlighted his "enforcer" status, namely as one who helped to implement Trudeau's programs but not often aided Trudeau's policies, but not often supported Trudeau in making decisions. Trudeau completely blocked Chrétien from any role in formulating financial plans, instead expecting Chrétien to implement the PMO's plans before consulting Chrétien. Trudeau, a West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt, was extremely close to the former German Chancellor, and Trudeau, a member of the Bonn G7 summit in 1978, had long talks with his friend Schmidt about how to win re-election in 1979. Schmidt suggested to Trudeau that he respond to criticism of the deficits he had ran by putting in some major budget cuts, an assumption that Trudeau embraced. Trudeau in 1978 announced in a press statement $2 billion in layoffs without bothering to tell Chrétien that he had been informed ahead of time about what he had done, leaving his finance minister looking confused in the resulting press interview. Chrétien found this situation so humiliating that he's considering resigning in protest. Chrétien was particularly humiliated by the fact that Chancellor Schmidt was more aware of what was going to happen than he was, which underemphasized that he was not a member of Trudeau's inner circle. Chrétien introduced the two federal budgets to the House floor in 1978, one in April and the other in November.

The Liberals lost the federal election of May 1979 to a minority Conservative government led by Joe Clark. Chrétien was appointed as minister of justice and attorney general when Pierre Trudeau regained power in February 1980. He was a major factor in the 1980 Quebec referendum, serving as one of the campaign's top federal politicians "on the ground." With his sharp warnings of the repercussions of separation, his fiery and emotional speeches would enthrall federalist audiences. Chrétien fought tenaciously against Chrétien's ferocious Canadian nationalist message during the 1980 referendum. During the 1980 referendum, Chrétien gave an average of six to seven speeches a day and always managed to include a local reference in every address.

He served as minister of state for social development and minister in charge of constitutional negotiations from 1980 to 1982, and played a key role in the national war on patriation, which culminated in the establishment of Canada. The Supreme Court ruled on September 28, 1981, that the federal government could honour the British North America Act without the provinces' permission, but that it would be "odious." Chrétien informed the premiers opposing patriation that Ottawa would unilaterally patriate the Constitution, but was unwilling to attend a final conference. During the subsequent First Ministers Conference in November 1981, two of the premiers, Allan Blakeney, the New Democratic premier of Saskatchewan, and Sterling Lyon, Manitoba's Progressive Conservative premier, made it clear that the most important factor in the new Charter of Rights and Freedoms was that it undermined the old British tradition of parliamentary supremacy. The underlying idea had always been that Parliament was the nation's highest law-making body, and both Blakeny and Lyon were concerned that the Charter would give the judiciary too much power to the courts.

Chrétien was the chief negotiator of the "Kitchen Accord" — a treaty that resulted in the agreement of nine provinces to a common declaration of patriation. Chrétien, Roy McMurtry, and Roy Romanow came up with the compromise of Section 33, the so-called "notwithstanding clause" that allows Parliament and provincial legislatures to overrule the courts in Charter cases. Chrétien recalled that Trudeau "hated" the prospect of Section 33 and that he was required to remind him: "Pierre, if you don't take the notwithstanding clause, you don't have the Charter." When Trudeau, together with New Brunswick Premier Richard Hatfield, were the only ones supporting the federal government at that point, he did not support Trudeau in London if Trudeau did not accept Section 33, which Chrétien said changed Trudeau's position completely. Chrétien defended the controversial Section 33 in a 2012 interview, saying: "Because some may argue that in a democracy the elected people must be supreme, not judges," Chrétien said. Taking a look at what happened in the United States, where the judges rule according to their so-called ideology. "That is not the norm here." Both of the English-speaking premiers accepted Section 33's compromise; Quebec Premier René Lévesque did not. Chrétien's participation in the controversies in his home province of Quebec would not be forgotten (although the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that Quebec was bound by it). Barry Strayer, one of Trudeau's aides, wrote about Chrétien's involvement in the civil war later: "He was able to consider compromises that Trudeau would not have been able to accept," Trudeau later stated about his service: "He was able to contemplate compromises that Trudeau would not have been able to accept." Everybody recognized him as a trustworthy broker. You may not have argued it would not have happened without him.

Chrétien was first elected Minister of Energy, Mines, and Resources in 1982. Chrétien, Alberta's energy minister, was in charge of enforceing the National Energy Program (NEP), a job that made him a hated figure. Chrétien himself was skeptical of the NEP's merits at the time of his appointment as energy minister, saying, "We've got to back off on the NEP without destroying our credibility," but Chrétien said on learning that Trudeau and his right-hand man, Finance Minister Marc Lalonde, were in favour of maintaining the NEP rather than risking his chances of winning the Liberal leadership. Chrétien's debate with Alberta Premier Peter Lougheed over the NEP demonstrated his disdain for provincial politicians, who were perceived as petty people only interested in their own provinces at the expense of the country.

Chrétien, one of the candidates competing for Prime Minister and Prime Minister of Canada, after Trudeau resigned in early 1984. Chrétien's life was a traumatic one for him, as many of his long-serving Cabinet allies supported John Turner's bid, despite Chrétien's growing dissatisfaction. Chrétien ran for president of Trudeau during the 1984 leadership race, promising to continue all of Trudeau's policies, unlike Turner, who promised a break with Trudeau. Chrétien appeared as a sociologist and snob snob who was out of touch with ordinary people during the leadership race, and he ridiculed Turner as a right-wing Bay Street snob. In a speech, Chrétien said that the national deficit was not a problem, and that "we must use the deficit to preserve our people's dignity." Chrétien attracted larger and more enthusiastic audiences than anything Turner ever managed, but the majority of the Liberal Party establishment reacted angrily to Turner's nomination in March 1984, which was an insurgent handicap for Chrétien. Chrétien was expected to be a dark horse until the end, but Turner was disqualified on the second ballot at the leadership convention in June. "Second on the ballot, but first in our hearts," the Liberal Party president at the time, Iona Campagnolo, introduced Chrétien. Turner appointed Chrétien deputy prime minister and secretary of state for international affairs.

Turner, after winning the leadership race, wanted to forge a deal with Chrétien in order to lead a coalition opposition in the forthcoming general election, so he asked Chrétien what terms he would accept. Chrétien, who was furious about losing the leadership race, demanded a word that Turner could never give him. Chrétien demanded to be named Quebec lieutenant with responsibility for patronage and organisation in Quebec. Turner had already offered the position to André Ouellet in exchange for his help in the leadership campaign. Turner may have told Turner that he would have broken his promise to Ouellet and that Turner relinquished control of Liberal activities in Quebec's Chrétien, Ouellet, and Lalonde. The troika was a sham, and the three troika members spent more time arguing with one another than fighting the Conservatives during the 1984 general election.

Chrétien's request for the Quebec lieutenancy was not the only thing that differentiated him from Turner. Chrétien and Turner fought over an early election almost immediately. Chrétien advised Turner not to ask the governor general to resign from Parliament but to hold Parliament in session for the fall of 1984 to give the government a record to run in a winter election that was early 1985. Since the last election was called in February 1980, an election had to be called no later than February 1985. Since Turner, who became prime minister in late June 1984, he was disregarded by his counsel, who requested that Parliament be dissolved for an election in September 1984.

Source