page_title: Jean Chrétien
section_title: Retirement
hierarchical_section_title: Jean Chrétien / Retirement
caption_attribution_description: April 27, 2011 Photo: Georges Alexandar
context_page_description: Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien PC OM CC QC is a Canadian politician who served as the 20th prime minister of Canada from November 4, 1993, to December 12, 2003.
  Born and raised in Shawinigan, Quebec, Chrétien is a law graduate from Université Laval. He was first elected to the House of Commons of Canada in 1963. He served in various cabinet posts under Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, most prominently as minister of justice, minister of finance, and minister of indian affairs and northern development. He also served as deputy prime minister, and secretary of state for external affairs in John Turner's short-lived government. He became leader of the Liberal Party of Canada in 1990, serving as leader of the opposition before leading the party to a majority government in the 1993 federal election. He was reelected with further majorities in 1997 and 2000.
  Chrétien was strongly opposed to the Quebec sovereignty movement and supported official bilingualism and multiculturalism. He won a narrow victory as leader of the federalist camp in the 1995 Quebec referendum, and then pioneered the Clarity Act to avoid ambiguity in future referendum questions.
context_section_description: On February 18, 2004, François Beaudoin won his wrongful dismissal suit against the Business Development Bank of Canada. Justice Andre Denis ruled in favor of Beaudoin's claim that he was fired for political reasons in 1999 for trying to call in the loan on the Grand Mère Inn, ruled that Chrétien's former aide Jean Carle and Michel Vennat was guilty of making false criminal and civil charges of wrongdoing against Beaudoin to discredit him for suing the bank, accused Carle of committing perjury during the trial and declared given the "unspeakable injustice" Beaudoin had suffered, told the government not to appeal his ruling because they would be wasting the tax-payers' money if they did. The lingering repercussions of the sponsorship scandal of 2002 reduced the Liberal Party to a minority in the 2004 election, may have strengthened the separatist case, and contributed to the government's defeat in the 2006 election. The scandal led to long-running, deep investigations by the RCMP, a federal inquiry, the Gomery Commission, chaired by Justice John Gomery (called by Martin in 2004), and several prosecutions and convictions; the legal process continued to late 2011, more than a decade after the scandal began.
  Jean Chrétien testified for the Gomery Commission regarding the sponsorship scandal in February 2005. Earlier that year his lawyers tried, but failed, to have Justice John Gomery removed from the commission, arguing that he lacked objectivity. Chrétien contends that the Gomery Commission was set up to tarnish his image, and that it was not a fair investigation. He cites comments Gomery made calling him "small town cheap", referring to the management of the sponsorship program as "catastrophically bad", and calling Chuck Guité a "charming scamp". Subsequent to the release of the first report, Chrétien has decided to take an action in Federal Court to review the commission report on the grounds that Gomery showed a "reasonable apprehension of bias", and that some conclusions didn't have an "evidentiary" basis. Chrétien believes that the appointment of Bernard Roy, a former chief of staff to former PC prime minister Brian Mulroney, as chief counsel for the commission was a mistake, as he failed to call some relevant witnesses such as Don Boudria and Ralph Goodale. In his report of November 1, 2005 on responsibility for the sponsorship scandal, Justice Gomery ruled that Chrétien was not responsible for the awarding of advertising contracts in Quebec in which millions were stolen, but did accept Charles Guité's claim that he received his instructions on what program to sponsor and to spend how much money on each program from Jean Pelletier, the chief of staff at the PMO between 1993 and 2001 and Jean Carle, the director of operations at the PMO between 1993 and 1998 as the truth.
  In September 2004, the "hard federalist" Chrétien was said to have been deeply disappointed by the "soft federalist" Martin's embrace of "asymmetrical federalism" as the federal government's new principle for dealing with the provinces. The Chrétien loyalist Senator Terry Mercer delivered a speech attacking "asymmetrical federalism" as a betrayal of everything the Liberals had worked for and believed in over the 20th century and as potentially threatening to national unity. Mercer's speech was generally believed to have reflected Chrétien's view of "asymmetrical federalism".
  In April 2007, Chrétien and Canadian book publishers Knopf Canada and Éditions du Boréal announced they would be publishing his memoirs, My Years as Prime Minister, which will recount Chrétien's tenure as prime minister. The book was announced under the title of A Passion for Politics. It arrived in bookstores in October 2007, in both English and French, but the promotional tour was delayed due to heart surgery. As well Straight from the Heart was republished with a new preface and two additional chapters detailing his return to politics as the leader of the Liberal Party and his victory in the election of 1993. Publisher Key Porter Books timed the re-issuing to coincide with the
caption: Chrétien greeting members of the public, 2011
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