thumb|200px|Jean Chrétien
'''Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien''' (ur. Partii Liberalnej od 13 grudnia 2003.

Urodził się w Shawinigan w Quebecu. Ukończył studia prawnicze na ''Quebecu. 

Na początku lat sześćdziesiątych zaangażował się w politykę. Do parlamentu został wybrany po raz pierwszy w Partii Liberalnej. Piastował liczne funkcje państwowe. W Pierre'a Trudeau aktywnie uczestniczył w tworzeniu i implementacji polityki multikulturalizmu oraz opieki socjalnej. W momencie gdy jego wielki poprzednik i mentor konserwatystów, zapewniając swej partii większość parlamentarną na kolejne trzy kadencje.

Jowialny i wzbudzający sympatię Chrétien w czasie prawie dziesięciu lat rządów spełnił niemal wszystkie swe przedwyborcze obietnice (z wyjątkiem nierealnej - zniesienia podatku VAT). Dokonania jego rządu graniczą z cudem. W krótkim czasie udało mu się wydźwignąć gospodarkę kanadyjską z głębokiej recesji i uczynić ją jedną z najszybciej rozwijających się w G7. Udało się jednocześnie zdławić inflację, pobudzić rozwój, zmniejszyć bezrobocie, ograniczyć wydatki budżetowe, zredukować etatyzm, zlikwidować deficyt budżetowy, a nawet rozpocząć spłacanie długu publicznego.

W pierwszych latach Partii Liberalnej. Choć z początku Chrétien nie zamierzał rezygnować z przywództwa, wobec nacisków swej partii złożył rezygnację z przewodzenia partii w listopadzie 12 grudnia 2003.

Na pożegnalnej gali obok emocjonalnych przemówień, często przerywanych owacjami, w części artystycznej wystąpili: kanadyjski weteran rock and rolla Paul Anka i jazzman Oscar Peterson.

{{Infobox Prime Minister
| honorific-prefix    = <small>The Right Honourable</small><br>
| name                = Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien<br>
| honorific-suffix    = <small>PC CC QC LLD</small>
| image               = JeanChrétien.jpg
| order               = 20th
| office              = Prime Minister of Canada
| term_start          = November 4, 1993
| term_end            = December 12, 2003
| monarch             = Elizabeth II
| predecessor         = Kim Campbell
| successor           = Paul Martin
| birth_date          = 
| birth_place         = Shawinigan, Quebec
| death_date          =
| death_place         =
| occupation          = Lawyer
| relations           = 
| children            = Hubert Chrétien, Michel Chrétien, and France Chrétien Desmarais
| alma_mater          = University of Laval
| profession          = 
| party               = Liberal
| spouse              = Aline Chrétien
| residence           = Shawinigan, Quebec
| religion            = Roman Catholic
| constituency_MP2    = Saint-Maurice (1968-1986) 
| term_start2         = 1963
| term_end2           = February 27, 1986
| majority2           = 
| predecessor2        = Gérard Lamy
| successor2          = Gilles Grondin
| constituency_MP3    = Beauséjour
| term_start3         = December 10, 1990
| term_end3           = 1993
| majority3           = 
| predecessor3        = Fernand Robichaud
| successor3          = Fernand Robichaud
| constituency_MP4    = Saint-Maurice
| term_start4         = 1993
| term_end4           = December 12, 2003
| majority4           = 
| predecessor4        = Denis Pronovost
| successor4          = Marcel Gagnon
}}
'''Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien''', (generally known as '''Jean Chrétien''') (born January 11, 1934), is a Canadian politician who was the twentieth Prime Minister of Canada from November 4, 1993, to December 12, 2003, and leader of the Liberal Party of Canada from 1990 to 2003.

==Early life==
Born in Shawinigan, Quebec, as the 18th of 19 children (10 of whom did not survive infancy<ref name=L&T>{{cite web | url = http://www.cbc.ca/lifeandtimes/chretien.html | title = The Life and Times of Jean Chrétien | accessdate = 2007-01-29 | year = 2003
| publisher = Canadian Broadcasting Corporation }}</ref>) to Wellie Chrétien and Marie Boisvert, Jean Chrétien studied law at Université Laval. Chrétien would later make light of his humble origins, calling himself "le petit gars de Shawinigan",<ref></ref> or the "little guy from Shawinigan." In his youth, he suffered an attack of Bell's palsy, permanently leaving the left side of his face partially paralyzed. Chrétien used this in his first Liberal leadership campaign, saying that he was "One politician who didn't talk out of both sides of his mouth."

On Aline Chainé. They have two sons (Hubert Chrétien and Michel) and one daughter (France). 

==Early political career==

Chrétien practised law in Shawinigan until he was first elected to the 1963 election. He would represent this Shawinigan-based riding, renamed Saint-Maurice in 1968, for all but eight of the next 41 years.  

After re-election in the 1965 election, he served as Minister of Finance, Minister of National Revenue in 1968 by Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau.

After the June 1968 election, he was appointed Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development. His most notable achievement in this role was the 1969 White Paper, a proposal to abolish the Indian Act. The paper was widely opposed by First Nations groups, and later abandoned.  

During the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce. In 1977, following the resignation of Finance Minister John Turner, Chrétien succeeded him. He was the first francophone Minister of Finance, and remains one of only three francophones to hold that post.

Early in his career, Chrétien was described by Dalton Camp as looking like ''the driver of the getaway car'', a condescending assessment which stuck with him, and which was often cited by journalists and others throughout his career, and usually ironically considering his eventual success.

== Minister of Justice ==

The Liberals lost power in 1979. When they regained power in 1980, Chrétien was appointed Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada. In this role, he was a major force in the Kitchen Accord", an agreement which led to the agreement of 9 provinces to patriation. His role in the dealings, however, would forever follow him in his native Quebec, who did not ratify the Constitution (although the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources.

== Loses leadership race, retires from politics ==

After Trudeau announced his retirement in early 1984 as Liberal Party leader and Prime Minister, Chrétien sought the leadership of the leadership convention that June. Iona Campagnolo would ominously introduce Chrétien as, "Second on the ballot, but first in our hearts."
<!-- Unsourced image removed: thumb|200px|left|Chrétien at the 1984 Liberal leadership convention -->
Turner personally appointed him Deputy Prime Minister, and selected him for appointment by the Governor General as 1984 election. Chrétien was one of only 17 Liberals elected from Quebec (the party had won 74 out of 75 seats in 1980) In 1986, Chrétien resigned his seat and left public life for a time. Now working in the private sector again, Chrétien sat on the boards of several corporations. These corporations included the Brick Warehouse Corporation, among others.

Chrétien would be a major focal point of dissatisfaction with Turner, with many polls showing his popularity. His book, ''Straight from the Heart'', was a best-seller.

==Early years as Liberal leader==

After Turner's resignation as leader in 1989, Chrétien announced he would run for the party leadership at the June 1990 Liberal leadership convention in Calgary, Alberta.  

Chrétien's principal opponent, Judas" at Chrétien. Martin continues to state he had nothing to do with the response from the floor, or a similar outburst by his supporters at the convention, in which Chrétien defeated Martin on the first and only ballot. However, his reputation in his home province never recovered.

In December, Chrétien returned to the House of Commons after winning a Beauséjour, New Brunswick. The incumbent, Fernand Robichaud, stood down in Chrétien's favour, which is traditional practice when a newly elected party leader doesn't have a seat in Parliament.

Chrétien later revealed himself to be as staunchly federalist as Trudeau. However, he supported the Charlottetown Accord while Trudeau opposed it.

When Progressive Conservative Prime Minister Goods and Services Tax.

==Prime Minister==
===The 1993 election===

Mulroney's approval ratings declined and by election due that year. Mulroney announced his retirement in February, and was succeeded by National Defense Minister the writs were dropped in September.

Campbell, however, had little luck overcoming the tremendous antipathy toward Mulroney, despite a substantial bounce from the leadership convention. Chrétien saw an opportunity, and on Red Book because of its bright red cover. It was a very specific and detailed statement of exactly what a Chrétien government would do in office.

The Liberals did not promise to remove the GST altogether as a revenue producing agent. Instead, the Red Book pledged to replace the GST "with a system that generates equivalent revenues, is fairer to consumers and to small business, minimizes disruption to small business, and promotes federal-provincial fiscal cooperation and harmonization." 

Chrétien promised to renegotiate of the North American Free Trade Agreement, and reform to the unemployment insurance system. Above all, he promised to return Canada to fiscal solvency. As proof, the Red Book gave costs for each of the Liberals' policy goals — the first time a Canadian party had gone to such lengths to prove that its proposals were fiscally responsible. In their first mandate in the 1993 election, they attempted to merge the GST, however most provinces refused to accept this change after the election. The Conservatives put forward the idea that Chrétien had actually promised to "Scrap the GST" leading to wide public misperception.

The Red Book gave the Liberals the reputation as the party with ideas, since none of the other parties had anything comparable. The Liberals quickly surged to a double-digit lead in most opinion polls. By October, it was obvious that the Liberals would win at least a series of ads attacking Chrétien. The second ad, released on October 14, appeared to mock Chrétien's facial paralysis, and generated a severe backlash from all sides. Even some Tory candidates called for the ad to be yanked. Campbell was not directly responsible for the ad, but ordered it off the air over her staff's objections. However, she didn't apologize and lost a chance to contain the fallout from the ad.

Chrétien, taking advantage of the furor, likening the Tories to the children who teased him when he was a boy in Shawinigan.  "When I was a kid people were laughing at me," he said at an appearance in Nova Scotia. "But I accepted that because God gave me other qualities and I'm grateful."  The speech, which one Tory described as one Chrétien had waited his whole life to deliver, moved many in the audience to tears. Chrétien's approval ratings shot up, nullifying the only advantage the Conservatives still had over him. All told, the ad flap all but assured that the Liberals would win a majority government.

On 1949. The Tories were nearly evicted from the House of Commons, winning only two seats in the worst defeat ever suffered by a governing party at the federal level. Chrétien himself yielded Beauséjour back to Robichaud in order to run in his old riding, Saint-Maurice. However, he was unable to lead the Liberals back to their traditional dominance in Quebec. He was one of only four Liberal MPs elected from that province outside the Montreal area.

===First term as Prime Minister===

On 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 a masterful knowledge of the Canadian parliamentary system, and allowed Chrétien to establish a very centralized government that, although highly efficient, was also lambasted by critics as being a "friendly dictatorship" and intolerant of internal dissent.  

Chrétien turned most of his attention to clearing away the massive debt he had inherited from the Mulroney / Campbell era. He was assisted by Martin. The government began a program of deep cuts to provincial transfers and other areas of government finance. During his tenure as Prime Minister, a $42 billion deficit was eliminated, five consecutive budget surpluses were recorded, $36 billion in debt was paid down, and taxes were cut by $100 billion (cumulatively) over 5 years, the largest tax cut in Canadian history.<ref></ref>  There were, however, undeniable costs associated with this endeavour. The cuts would result in fewer government services, most noticeably in the health care sector, as major reductions in federal funding to the provinces meant significant cuts in service delivery. Moreover, the across-the- board cuts affected the operations and achievement of the mandate of most federal departments. Many of the cuts would be restored in later years of Chrétien's period in office.

One of Chrétien's main focuses in office was preventing the separation of the province of Quebec, which was ruled by the separatist ''1995 referendum very narrowly defeated a proposal on Quebec sovereignty, the government passed what became known as the ''Clarity Act'', which said that no Canadian government would acknowledge a Quebec declaration of independence unless a "clear majority" supported sovereignty in a referendum based on a "clear question", as defined by the Parliament of Canada. The size of a "clear majority" was left unspecified, but the Supreme Court of Canada made it clear that such a majority would not be "50% plus one vote".

On November 5, 1995, 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. It is said Jean was ready to defend himself with a sharp-edged Inuit carving.

===Second term as Prime Minister===

Taking advantage of the split status of the political right, Chretien easily won another majority government in 1997.

Chrétien was involved in a controversy again in November, 1997, when the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit was held on the University of British Columbia campus in Vancouver. The APEC summit was a summit of many Asian and Pacific countries, and students on UBC's campus protested the meeting of some of these leaders because of their poor human rights practices. One of the leaders most criticized was then Indonesian President Suharto. Demonstrators tore down a barrier and were pepper-sprayed. Other peaceful demonstrators were subsequently pepper-sprayed as well. There was debate over whether the action was necessary. Chrétien responded to the media's questions about the incident by saying "For me, pepper, I put it on my plate." Allegations soon arose that someone in the Prime Minister's Office or Chrétien himself gave the go-ahead for the pepper spraying of protestors. Chrétien denied any involvement.<ref></ref>

In 1999, Chretien supported Canada's involvement in NATO's bombing campaign of Yugoslavia over the issue of Kosovo. The 1999 NATO bombing of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was NATO's and Canada's first deliberate non-defensive aggression against another sovereign state.

The government under Chrétien's prime ministership also introduced a new and far-reaching ''Youth Criminal Justice Act'', which replaced the old ''Young Offenders Act'', and changed the way youths were prosecuted for crimes in Canada.

Chretien was known to be friendly in foreign policy towards the People's Republic of China. He led four "Team Canada" trade missions to China, and sharply increased the amount of trade between the two countries during his tenure as Prime Minister. Under his leadership, China and Canada signed several bilateral relations agreements. 

===Third term as Prime Minister===

With the Canadian political right still split, Chretien called an early election in 2000, two years ahead of requirement, winning his third straight mandate.

Following the September 11 terrorist attacks upon the United States, North American airspace was shut down and many Canadians opened up their homes to stranded travellers. Chrétien praised Operation Yellow Ribbon, saying that it was one of the ways it showed the best of Canadians in a time of tragedy for their American friends and neighbours down south. In response to those attacks, Canadian forces joined with multinational forces that invaded Afghanistan to pursue al-Qaeda forces there.
left|thumb|250px|President [[George W. Bush and Jean Chrétien address the media before a 2002 bilateral meeting.]]
Chrétien directed the Crown not to support the US-led 2003 invasion of Iraq. His reasoning was that the war lacked UN Security Council sanction; while not a member of the Security Council, Canada nevertheless attempted to build a consensus for a resolution authorizing the use of force after a short (two to three month) extension to UN weapon inspections in Iraq. (Critics also noted that, while in opposition, he had also opposed the first US-led Gulf War.) Although criticism from right-wing opposition was vocal, the move proved popular with the Canadian public in general. In December of 2003, it emerged that the government had prepared plans for Canada to send as many as 800 Canadian troops to Iraq if the UN Security Council had authorized it; however, a UN request for an increased deployment of Canadian soldiers to Afghanistan removed this option from the table. This led some of Chrétien's anti-war critics on the left to accuse the Prime Minister of never really being fully opposed to the war. Nonetheless, Canada was the first non-member of the US-led coalition to provide significant financial aid to the post-war reconstruction effort, relative to Canada's size. This move allowed Canadian companies to bid on reconstruction contracts.

=== Controversies ===

Chrétien's term was marked by two major brushes with scandal. In 2000, after initial denials, he acknowledged having lobbied the Business Development Bank of Canada to grant a $2 million loan to Yvon Duhaime, a friend and constituent to whom the Prime Minister had sold his interest in a local resort. The bank had turned down the initial application, but later approved a $615,000 loan following further lobbying by Chrétien. The application became controversial when it was revealed that Chrétien had never been paid for his share in the sale of the adjoining golf course, and by criminal charges against Duhaime. The Prime Minister's ethics counsellor determined that Chrétien had not violated any conflict-of-interest rules, noting that there were no clear guidelines on such matters.

The other major controversy of the Chrétien years was the Liberal Party to a minority in 2004, and contributed to the government's defeat in 2006.

Chrétien came under fire for backtracking on some of his promises, most notably the GST. Instead of scrapping it, he replaced it with the Atlantic provinces. However, Chrétien claimed that the fiscal situation was far worse than expected. Despite slipping poll numbers, he advised the Governor General to call an election for 1997, a year ahead of schedule. Many of his own MPs criticized him for this move, especially in light of the devastating Red River Flood. He was reelected with a considerably reduced mandate. However, they still finished with 95 more seats than the next-largest party. The Liberals rebounded in 2000, nearly tying their 1993 total.

Throughout his prime-ministership, Chrétien faced only weak opposition in the House of Commons. This was partly because he governed with majorities for the whole time, and with quite large ones for most of it; and partly because of the peculiar state of the opposition parties. During his first parliament, the Official Opposition was the Reform, which had become the leading right-wing party, and which held only marginally fewer seats than the Bloc. The Bloc faded somewhat in the 1997 election, while the Reform Party gained and so took over as Official Opposition for next parliament. Reform, though, began as a Western protest party, and never altogether lost that character. Moreover, Reform was seen as too extreme by most Canadians, especially those east of Manitoba, where the party never had much success. Even after Reform renewed itself as the Progressive Conservatives, held only a few seats each, and their parliamentary effect was accordingly slight. While the Canadian Alliance and Progressive Conservatives eventually merged in 2003, it was around the same time that Chrétien quit politics. 