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Elections: Part I, the Liberal Party of Canada

© David Newman

Federal Election! There's something that's good about Canada I like better than the States. Down there, they have two politicians running for the top executive job and you don't want either of them voted in whereas in Canada we have 5 of them. I mean look at Jean I-cant-speak-in-either-official-language Chretien, Stockwell how's-my-wetsuit-look Day, Gilles I-want-Canada-to-separate-from-Quebec Duceppe, Alexa am-I-too-on-the-right-for-a-neo-democrat McDonough, Joe ho-ho-ho Clark. It makes you want to vote for the Rhinos if only they still existed. Anyway, in the spirit of the elections there will be a five part series for each of the five major parties (If I had more time I'd do all Registered Parties which apart from the 5 major parties, include the Natural Law Party, Marxist-Leninist Party, Green Party, Christian Heritage Party and Canadian Action Party) and their leaders and of course an article with results.

Alright, here's Jean Chrétien's Liberal Party of Canada

The Liberals are Canada's Second party after the Conservatives in senority. They were founded not much after the "Tories" were but were known as Reform Party (Ironic isn't it?) yet the philosophy was the same to a certain extent. They are one of two parties that have actually made it to Parliament and had had many interesting people visit 24 Sussex such as Wilfrid Laurier, Mackenzie King, Lester Pearson and Pierre Trudeau. They are the party who was until the recent dissolution of parliament, the party in Power. They have been in Power since 1993.

Jean Chrétien was born in Shawinigan, Québec (10 km from nowhere) in 1934. He has a very long political history. He was elected for the first time to the House of Commons in 1963 as a member of the Pearson government. He was again reelected in 1965 and was later named Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister and became Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance in 1966. He changed to Minister of State and then to Minister of National Revenue before the next election in 1968. He was reelected, now as part of the Trudeau government and became Minister of Indian Affairs which he will hold until 1974 when he becomes President of the Treasury Board. In 1977 he held the cabinet post of Minister of Finance until the Clark Tory government in 1979 but in 1980 he became Minister of Justice and there were more ministries he went into. When Trudeau retired, Chrétien was a candidate for the Liberal Leadership, but lost to Turner. He retired from the Commons in 1986. In 1990 he was elected Leader of the Liberal Party and was elected Prime Minister in 1993 and again in 1997.

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