Jean Chrétien: My Years as Prime Minister: Entre Nous (I)

On holiday, finally getting a chance to read Jean Chrétien's My Years as Prime Minister.

After working on Bay Street, covering technology companies for nearly a decade, I moved to Ottawa to try my hand at political reporting in the winter of 2005, just as Paul Martin's tenure as PM was winding down. As a result, I missed the Chrétien years and, as I start to read his memoirs of his time in power, I'm keen to see what he has to say, particularly in light of what I know about the current incumbent and how he conducts himself in office..

Here are some of sections I would have underlined had I not had a blog to do that for me …

…politics is about wanting power, getting it, exercising it, and keeping it. Helping people comes with it naturally, because you'll never be elected if you treat people badly …

… Politics is a sport in which the desire for victory is everything, because the ultimate reward is the power that lets you do some good for your constituents as a member of Parliament, for the stakeholders as a minister, and for the entire country and maybe even the rest of the world as prime minister … you're in the game to serve, since politics gives you the opportunity to help others. (p. 2-3)

In 1993…

… Canada was in terrible shape — exhausted, demoralized, and fractured. The federal, provincial and municipal governments were virtually bankrupt, and their combined debt was greater than the country's total GDP, its gross domestic product. Unemployment stuck at 11.4 per cent … (p. 3)

… Mulroney might have survived to fight and win a third term if he hadn't also put the country in a constitutional pressure cooker … (p. 4)

In Chrétien's estimation, Mulroney's gambles failed completely …

… his close friend and key lieutenant Lucien Bouchard quit the Tories and launched the Bloc Québecois, which was dedicated to advancing the cause of Quebec independence within the federal House; Preston Manning funneled Western discontent into his populist movement, the Reform Party; and Mulroney himself, with his personal popularity lower than the percentage of people who believed that Elvis Presley was still alive, decided to retreat from the field in February, 1993. (p 4-5)

Then he gloats – and why not? I know many will say he benefited from the fracture of the political right but the guy did win three majorities.

Ten years later, at my retirement … in 2003, Canada was enjoying the longest period of economic expansion since the 1960s, Ottawa was on the verge of announcing its seventh budget surplus in a row, unemployment had fallen to around seven per cent and was still dropping, the Parti Québécois had been defeated …, Western Canada had never been more prosperous, Canada's international reputation as an economic miracle and independent force for peace in the world had never been higher, and the Liberal Party … was .. ready to win its fourth consecutive majority. (p 5)

Prime ministers cannot – must not — get bogged down in the details of government or try to micromanage the business of the nation. Rather, it is their job to establish priorities, develop strategies, supervise crises, handle the toughest problems, communicate the complicated issues in simple ways, and delegate as much as possible to their ministers. (p 7)

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