Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien PC OM CC KC AdE (Quebec French: [ʒɑ̃ kʁetsjẽɪ̯̃]; born January 11, 1934) is a Canadian politician, statesman, and lawyer who served as the 20th prime minister of Canada from 1993 to 2003.

[9] In an interview, Chrétien called his education "unnatural", as he recalled an extremely strict regime where the priests beat anyone bloody who dared to question their authority while teaching via rote learning.

[30] Trudeau and his intellectual advisors in the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) held Chrétien in contempt as someone who spoke French with a working-class accent and whose manners were unpolished, but they appreciated his toughness and ability to get things done.

[37] Robert Bourassa, the Liberal premier of Quebec, was a nationalist who frequently pressed for more devolution of federal powers to his province, making him Trudeau's bête noire, with the two men openly feuding.

[42] As industry minister, Chrétien moved to the left, being known for his populist policies, imposing tariffs on clothing made abroad to encourage more production in Canada, and having the government fund the development of the Challenger aircraft.

[51] During the resulting First Ministers conference in November 1981, two of the premiers, Allan Blakeney of Saskatchewan and Sterling Lyon of Manitoba, made it clear that their principal objection to the proposed Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms was that it undermined the ancient British tradition of parliamentary supremacy.

[56] Chrétien's battles with Alberta Premier Peter Lougheed over the NEP helped to confirm his disdain for provincial politicians, whom he saw as petty people only interested in their own provinces at the expense of the nation.

[64] Turner disregarded Chrétien's advice, believing that a boost in the polls after he assumed the premiership in late June 1984 justified asking for Parliament to be dissolved, and for an election to be held in September 1984.

His 1985 book, Straight from the Heart, was an instant bestseller that recounted his early life in Shawinigan, his years spent in the House of Commons of Canada as both a member of Parliament and Cabinet minister, and his failed 1984 leadership bid.

[85] Upon becoming Liberal leader, Chrétien appointed his friend Eddie Goldenberg as his chief of staff, and formed a leadership team comprising John Rae and David Zussman as his policy advisors, his "surrogate son" Jean Carle as his special executive assistant, Warren Kinsella as his media adviser, and George Radwanski as his speech-writer.

[96] In November 1991, Chrétien organized a party conference in Aylmer, Quebec, where the Liberals formally disavowed most of the economic nationalism and protectionism of the Pearson-Trudeau years and instead embraced globalization as the cure for the ongoing recession.

However, unlike Trudeau, Chrétien supported the Charlottetown Accord of August 1992, another package of constitutional amendments which proposed devolving federal powers to the provinces and once again recognized Quebec as a "distinct society".

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.

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.

[115] 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.

[123] On August 7, 2001, the APEC report was issued by Judge Ted Hughes, which cleared Chrétien of wrongdoing, but stated that Jean Carle of the PMO had improperly pressured the RCMP to attack the protesters.

[127] In 2001, the court ruled in favor of Chrétien, stating it was the prime minister's prerogative to advise the Queen not to raise Canadians to the British peerage if he felt so inclined, and thereforth this was not an abuse of power as Black had claimed.

[152] The 1995 budget, which was called by Peter C. Newman a "watershed document" that marked the first time in recent memory that anybody had made a serious effort to deal with the deficit, won a favorable reaction from the international markets, and a led to an immediate fall in interest rates.

[157] In 1999, Chrétien supported Canada's involvement in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) bombing campaign of Yugoslavia over the issue of Kosovo, even through the operation was unsanctioned by the United Nations Security Council.

[163] Clinton informed the prime minister that he could either scrap NAFTA or accept it as it was, and that the most he could offer were a few cosmetic concessions like writing a letter saying the United States was not interested in taking over Canada's energy and water.

[165] Critics of the government, such as Joe Clark, then pointed out that in the previous week, The Globe & Mail had run on its front page a photo of Canadian soldiers turning over POWs to American troops.

Chrétien formed a "war room" comprising his communications director Françoise Ducros, Warren Kinsella, Duncan Fulton and Kevin Bosch to gather material to attack Day as a right-wing extremist.

The New Democrats and Bloc Québécois also ran lacklustre campaigns, while the Progressive Conservatives, led by former Prime Minister Joe Clark, struggled to retain official party status.

Duhaime was a friend and constituent to whom the Prime Minister stated that he had sold his interest in the Grand-Mère Inn, a local Shawinigan-area hotel and golf resort, eventually providing evidence of the sale—a contract written on a cocktail napkin.

On February 19, 2001, the RCMP announced that there they did not find sufficient evidence to lay criminal charges against anyone in regards to the Grand-Mere Affair, and Chrétien accused Clark of waging a "witch hunt" against the Liberals.

[192] The major controversy of the later Chrétien years was the Sponsorship Scandal, which involved more than $100 million distributed from the Prime Minister's Office to Quebec's federalist and Liberal Party interests without much accountability.

[194] Opposition critics further suggested that the public works minister at the time, Alfonso Gagliano, whom Chrétien had praised as a great patriot, was not just a mere bystander to questionable contacts associated with the sponsorship program that Fraser had identified.

"[195] Chrétien's argument that he had nothing to apologize for in regards to the sponsorship program, and his apparent condoning of corruption as justified by the results of saving Canada fared poorly with the Canadian public, which increasingly started to perceive the prime minister as an autocratic leader with a thuggish streak.

[232] In October 2021, Chrétien faced controversy during a promotional press interview for his recent book publication in which he denied having knowledge of the ongoing abuse happening to indigenous children in residential schools during his time as Indian Affairs Minister.

Writing in Policy Options, historian and author Bob Plamondon pointed out that "After demonizing Chrétien, Quebec nationalists could not reconcile themselves to the reality that he gave their province new tools to protect the French language and culture.