Jean Chrétien's greatest asset as Canada's twentieth prime minister is his long years of experience in Parliament and Cabinet. In government or in opposition, he has served with six prime ministers, held twelve ministerial positions and sat in Parliament for a total of twenty-seven years. When it comes to the game of politics, no one knows better the players and the strategies. The eighteenth child of a paper mill machinist, Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien was born in Shawinigan, Quebec in 1934, sharing with Canada's first prime minister, Sir John A. Macdonald, the same birthday of January 11. Although his academic achievements were modest, Chrétien's parents were determined to give him good education and he was sent to the classical college in Trois-Riviéres. After graduating, he attended Laval University, where he studied law. He was called to the Bar in 1958 and set up his law practice in the working-class district of Shawinigan North. Chrétien had demonstrated an interest in politics from a young age. His father was a Liberal organizer and by the age of fifteen, Chrétien was helping to distr
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In 1963, Chrétien was asked to run as the Liberal candidate for St-Maurice-Lafléche in the federal election. Although their traditional opponents, the Conservatives, were all but annihilated, they now confront an avowedly separatist opposition party with the staunchly right-wing Reform party as a close third. Chrétien spent his first two years in Ottawa as a backbencher, improving his English. Chrétien set up the Berger Commission in 1972 to make recommendations on a proposed pipeline in the Mackenzie River Valley, and established an office for the settling of native land claims. When Trudeau resigned as prime minister in 1984, Chrétien ran for leadership of the Liberal party. In a hard-fought campaign, Chrétien won by 2000 votes. The Liberals ran a strong campaign and won a majority of 176 seats. By 1960, he was principal organizer for Jean Lesage, leader of the provincial Liberal party, in the election that made him Quebec Premier that year. Quebec Liberals were an endangered species in the 1950s; the Union Nationale had dominated Quebec politics for more than a decade, and in 1957, the Conservatives won federally. As Minister for Constitutional Negotiations, he drafted and organized the passage of the 1982 Charter of Rights and the repatriation of the constitution. After the 1968 election, Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau made Chrétien Minister of National Revenue. In 1980, Chrétien became Minister of Justice where he was responsible for supporting the "no" forces in the Quebec Referendum on Sovereignty. On November 4, 1993, Jean Chrétien was sworn in as prime minister and shouldered the enormous burden borne by the nineteen other Canadians who have tried to govern this country. At Laval he joined the campus Liberal Club.
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