The premiership of Jean Chrétien began on November 4, 1993, when the first Cabinet headed by Jean Chrétien was sworn in by Governor General Ray Hnatyshyn. Chrétien was invited to form the 26th Canadian Ministry and become Prime Minister of Canada following the 1993 federal election, where Chrétien led his Liberal Party to win a majority of seats in the House of Commons of Canada, defeating the Progressive Conservative majority government of Prime Minister Kim Campbell. Chrétien led his Liberals to win two additional majorities in the federal elections of 1997 and 2000.
On December 12, 2003, Chrétien resigned as prime minister, being succeeded by his former finance minister, Paul Martin.
Background
A lawyer from Quebec, Jean Chrétien was elected as a Liberal to the House of Commons in the 1963 election. He served in the Cabinet of Prime Ministers Lester Pearson and Pierre Trudeau; some of his notable portfolios included minister of Indian affairs and northern development, president of the Treasury Board, minister of finance, and minister of justice. Chrétien contested the leadership of the Liberal Party to succeed Trudeau in the 1984 leadership election, but came in second place to his former Cabinet colleague John Turner. After Turner led the Liberals to two consecutive defeats in the 1984 and 1988 federal elections, Chrétien became leader of the Liberals in the 1990 leadership election. He led the party to a strong majority government in the 1993 federal election. He then led the party to two additional majorities in the elections of 1997 and 2000.
Tenure (1993–2003)
On November 4, 1993, Chrétien was appointed by Governor General Ray Hnatyshyn as prime minister. While Trudeau, Joe Clark, and Mulroney had been relative political outsiders prior to becoming prime minister, Chrétien had served in every Liberal cabinet since 1965. This experience gave him knowledge of the Canadian parliamentary system, and allowed Chrétien to establish a very centralized government that, although highly efficient, was also lambasted by critics such as Jeffrey Simpson and the media as being a "friendly dictatorship" and intolerant of internal dissent.Martin, Lawrence Iron Man, Toronto: Viking, 2003 pp. 283–284. Chrétien liked to present himself as the heir to Trudeau, but his governing style had little in common with the intense bouts of governmental activism that had characterised the Trudeau era. The Chrétien government had a cautious, managerial approach to governing, reacting to issues as they arose, and was otherwise inclined to inactivity.Martin, Lawrence Iron Man, Toronto: Viking, 2003 p. 97.
In 2003, Chretien changed the way politics was done in Canada by introducing Bill C-24 the Canada Elections Act, on the recommendation of the Chief Electoral Officer of Canada, Jean-Pierre Kingsley.
Quebec
1995 Quebec referendum
One of Chrétien's main concerns in office was separation of the province of Quebec, which was ruled by the sovereigntist Parti Québécois for nearly the entirety of his term. When the 1995 Quebec independence referendum began in September, Chrétien was relaxed and confident of victory as polls showed federalist forces were leading by a wide margin.Jeffrey, Brooke Divided Loyalties Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2010, p. 278. On October 8, 1995, Lucien Bouchard replaced the separatist premier of Quebec, Jacques Parizeau, as the de facto chair of the oui committee and, at that point, the support for the side started to dramatically increase, aided by the committee's complacency (they had been taking victory for granted).Jeffrey, Brooke Divided Loyalties Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2010, pp. 278–279. Unlike the "hard separatist" Parizeau (for whom nothing less than a totally independent Quebec republic would have sufficed), the "soft separatist" Bouchard argued for sovereignty association, which turned out to be a more appealing vision of the future to many Québécois. However, Chrétien considered the replacement of Parizeau with Bouchard a sign of weakness; it was only as October went on that he realized Bouchard was a much more formidable opponent than Parizeau.Martin, Lawrence Iron Man, Toronto: Viking, 2003 p. 121.
In the weeks leading to the referendum on October 30, 1995, the federal government was seized with fear and panic as polls showing that, under the leadership of Bouchard, the oui side was going to win.Martin, Lawrence Iron Man, Toronto: Viking, 2003 pp. 126–128. An additional problem for the non side occurred when the Gaullist president of France, Jacques Chirac, stated in a TV interview that France would not only recognize an independent Quebec at once, but also use its influence within the European Union to have the other EU nations recognize Quebec as well, a statement that boosted support for the oui side.Martin, Lawrence Iron Man, Toronto: Viking, 2003 p. 128. Such was Chrétien's alarm at Chirac's remark that the prime minister—who normally fiercely resented anything that smacked of American interference in Canadian internal affairs in the slightest—lobbied U.S. President Bill Clinton behind the scenes for an American statement in favor of a united Canada. Chrétien's efforts paid off, and Clinton not only came out very strongly for the federalist side in a TV interview, but also stated that an independent Quebec would not automatically become a member of NAFTA as the oui side was claiming.
With the federalist forces in open disarray and the polls showing that the oui side was going to win, Fisheries Minister Brian Tobin suggested organizing a gigantic "unity rally" in Montreal.Lawrence Martin, Iron Man: The Defiant Reign of Jean Chrétien (Toronto: Viking, 2003), p. 127, . The Unity Rally took place on October 27, 1995, when 100,000 people showed up.Lawrence Martin, Iron Man: The Defiant Reign of Jean Chrétien (Toronto: Viking, 2003), pp. 132–133, . On the night of the referendum, the prospect of victory by the oui side was so realistic that Defence Minister David Collenette ordered the military to begin contingency plans to defend federal property in Quebec from a separatist take-over.Martin, Lawrence Iron Man, Toronto: Viking, 2003 p. 134. On October 30, 1995, the federalist non side won by the narrowest of margins, with 50.58%. Chrétien blamed the narrow victory on the Quebec Liberals under Johnson, whom he claimed had betrayed him, argued the federalists would have done much better if only he had intervened in the referendum earlier, and presented the non case in terms of Trudeau-style "hard federalism" instead of the "soft federalist" non case presented by Johnson, which depicted the benefits of Confederation in purely economic terms and had a strongly nationalist (albeit federalist) tone of language.Jeffrey, Brooke Divided Loyalties Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2010, p. 283.
Aftermath of referendum
On November 5, 1995, six days after the referendum, Chrétien and his wife escaped injury when André Dallaire, armed with a knife, broke in the prime minister's official residence at 24 Sussex Drive. Aline Chrétien shut and locked the bedroom door until security came, while Chrétien held a stone Inuit carving in readiness. Dallaire was a separatist who was angered by the result of the referendum.
In the aftermath of the narrow victory in the referendum, Chrétien started in late 1995 a new policy of "tough love", also known as "Plan B", where the federal government sought to discredit Quebec separatism by making it clear to the people of Quebec how difficult it would be to leave Canada.Jeffrey, Brooke Divided Loyalties Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2010, pp. 284–286. Though Chrétien had promised to enshrine recognition of Quebec as a "distinct society" in the constitution in order to win the referendum, this promise was quickly forgotten in the aftermath of victory with Chrétien arguing that the very vocal opposition of Ontario Premier Mike Harris to amending the constitution to recognize Quebec as a "distinct society" made that impossible.Jeffrey, Brooke Divided Loyalties Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2010, p. 284. Instead, Chrétien had Parliament pass a resolution recognizing Quebec as a "distinct society", which had no constitutional force and was only a symbolic step. Though Harris's promise to veto any sort of "distinct society" clause in the constitution made fulfilling Chrétien's commitment to put such a clause into the constitution impossible, Chrétien did not seem to champion the idea of a "distinct society" clause with any great conviction.
In early 1996, the federal government launched an advertising program to increase the presence of Canada in Quebec, a policy that Chrétien believed would avoid a repeat of the near-defeat of 1995, and was to lead eventually to the Sponsorship scandal.Jeffrey, Brooke Divided Loyalties Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2010, p. 287. As part of his "Plan B" for combatting Quebec separatism, in a speech in January 1996, Chrétien endorsed the idea of partitioning Quebec in the event of a oui vote in another referendum, stating all of the regions of Quebec that voted non would remain part of Canada, regardless of what the Quebec separatists thought.Martin, Lawrence Iron Man, Toronto: Viking, 2003 p. 143 On February 15, 1996, Chrétien was confronted by a protester, Bill Clennett, during a walkabout in Hull, Quebec. Chrétien responded with a choke-hold. The press referred to it as the "Shawinigan handshake" (from the name of his home town).
In February 1999, the Social Union Framework Agreement (SUFA) was signed between Ottawa and the 9 of the 10 provinces (Quebec Premier Lucien Bouchard refused to sign the agreement).Jeffrey, Brooke Divided Loyalties Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2010, p. 315. The SUFA had been promoted by Intergovernment Affairs Minister Stéphane Dion as a way of promoting a new era of federal-provincial harmony, but Chrétien himself was unenthusiastic, taking the view that the SUFA had given too much to the provinces and Chrétien had only signed the SUFA as a way of gaining the support of the 9 English provinces in his battles against the Bouchard government in Quebec.Jeffrey, Brooke Divided Loyalties Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2010, p. 316. The SUFA turned out to be largely meaningless as the provinces and the federal government spent money on various social programs with little effort at the sort of co-operation that the SUFA had envisioned.Jeffrey, Brooke Divided Loyalties Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2010, pp. 316–317.
Clarity Act
After the 1995 referendum very narrowly defeated a proposal on Quebec sovereignty, Chrétien started to champion what eventually become the Clarity Act as part of his "Plan B". In August 1996, the lawyer Guy Bertrand won a ruling in a Quebec court declaring that the sovereignty question was not just a political matter between the federal and Quebec governments, but also a legal matter subject to court rulings.Martin, Lawrence Iron Man, Toronto: Viking, 2003 p. 165. Following that ruling, Chrétien decided that here was a means of defeating the Quebec sovereignty movement and, in September 1996, ordered the Justice Minister Allan Rock to take the question of the legality of Quebec separating to the Supreme Court. Stéphane Dion advised Chrétien that, if the federal government won the reference to the Supreme Court as expected, the government should draft a bill stating the precise rules for Quebec to leave—telling Chrétien if the people of Quebec could be shown how difficult it would be to leave, then support for separatism would fall.Martin, Lawrence Iron Man, Toronto: Viking, 2003 p. 166. Along the same lines, Dion started to send much-publicised open letters to Quebec ministers questioning the assumptions behind the separatist case.Martin, Lawrence Iron Man, Toronto: Viking, 2003 p. 167.