Chrétien: The Will to Win

D.M.L. Farr is professor emeritus of history at Carleton University in
Ottawa and the editor of Life and Letters of Sir Wilfrid Laurier.

There have been a number of commentaries on Jean Chrétien’s long
political career, as well as his own memoir, Straight from the Heart
(1985). Lawrence Martin’s account is far and away the best explanation
of the personality of Chrétien that has appeared. It covers its subject
until 1990, on the eve of Chrétien’s accession to the party
leadership. The book has several strengths. For the first time it looks
closely at Chrétien’s growing up in Shawinigan, Quebec, vividly
describing the working-class and partisan Liberal environment that
moulded him. Straight from the Heart devoted only 25 pages to the 29
years of Chrétien’s life before he entered Parliament. Martin
provides 137, and they make for fascinating reading. The book also
benefits from the more than 250 interviews with Chrétien’s friends,
family, and associates; family members were apparently especially
forthcoming in their recollections of Jean as a man and as a politician.

The picture of Chrétien that emerges is one that shows warts and all.
Although Chrétien is respected for his personal integrity, that quality
was absent when he persuaded a friend to run against him as a
“counterfeit candidate” in St. Maurice in 1972. Chrétien could be
deceitful and was often vengeful. He was transparently ambitious and
hungry for power. His record as minister of innumerable departments, the
basis of his claim to a breadth of experience unmatched by any other
Canadian prime minister, is not outstanding. Although he came to relish
the Indian Affairs portfolio, he and his master, Pierre Trudeau, botched
their plan to abolish the Indian Act and give Natives equal status with
other Canadians. He was not up to the job of Minister of Finance in 1977
and left the portfolio diminished in stature. Although he carried the
package of constitutional changes that resulted in the Constitution Act
of 1982, his advisers believed that he did not know his brief, being
more interested in securing approval for the package than in its
contents. His finest hour was in emotionally attacking the sovereigntist
side in the Quebec referendum of 1980. His approach did not require
intellectual argument but called for passion. This Chrétien provided,
melding his love of country with his deep distaste for the intellectual
pretensions of the sovereigntists. For years they had sneered at his
intelligence and mocked his use of the language; now he was finding
satisfaction in their defeat.

Martin concludes that Chrétien’s success as a political leader
derives from his expression of the values of the average Canadian, from
the fact that he “never left the street that he lived on.” The book
ends on this assessment, having presented a lively and fair view of its
subject. The writing is vigorous and never becomes bogged down in the
minutiae of politics. The focus is exclusively on Chrétien, with the
times through which he passed only lightly penciled in. There are notes,
arranged somewhat loosely by page and not by footnote reference, and
there is a collection of Chrétien photographs.

Such a good book makes one look forward with anticipation to Volume 2,
which will deal with the recent and more decisive years of Chrétien’s
leadership of his party and the national government.