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Background
He was born in Shawinigan Quebec into a family of nineteen and him being the second youngest of his siblings. However, eleven of his ciblings died at young ages. He would often get into fights as a teenager. -
Schooling
He attended Laval Univerisity where he practised his law degree. Then he graduated in the year of 1959 and had now earned his law degree. -
Married
He married Aline Chaine and ended up having two kids and then adopted another. Their names were France, Hubert and Micheal who was adpoted and suffered from Fetak Alcohol Syndrome a result of his mother drinking during pregnancy. -
Political journey begins
He was first elected to the house of commons in 1963. Then a couple years later Pierre Trudeau had made him Minister of Justice, Minister of Finance, and Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development. He even served as deputy pm while John Turner was in office. -
Period: to
Minister of Indian and Northern Affairs
He made 10 new national parks, this was a major accomplishment, since before that point only 4 parks were made in a 40 year span. One of the parks being British Columbia’s Pacific Rim National Park on Vancouver Island. -
Women becoming more involved
He appointed Bertha Wilson as the first woman justice of the Supreme Court of Canada in 1982, where she stayed until 1991 when she retired. -
Election
After becoming leader of the liberal party in 1990, Jean was then elected as Canada's 20th prime minister.When he first came into office he realized the large debt that had been left behing and ended up cutting $25 billion in spending in over 3 years. By 1998 Canada had it's first surplus in 25 years! -
Millenium Scholarship
The Scholarship Foundation he made in 1998 recieved an endowment of $2.5 billion allowing to provide awards anually for tne years. The hope was to imporve educational access for Canadians and encourage a high level of ahcievment amoung students. -
Kyoto Protocol
He signed the kyoto protocol whichs purpouse was to fight global warming by reducing a certain percent of emission during a period of time. -
The Clarity Act
As a result of the Quebec Referendum the Clarity Bill was made in order to outline the rules of secession of a Canadian province. -
NEPAD (New Partnership for Africas Developement)
Jean encouraged the g-8 leaders to respond to Africa's NEPAD proposal and in result came up with an African Action Plan. He then began to formulate the change and shaped Canada's foreign policies around humane internationalism. -
ICC (International Criminal Court)
Canada had a leadership role in conducting International
Criminal Court negotiations, and in promoting the effect of the ICC. Leader Jean Chretien said that "A permanent ICC will substantially enhance the power of the community of nations to bring to justice those who perpetrate genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes." -
Foreign Affairs
He kept Canadaian soldiers out of the U.S invasion of Iraq. While they did not join they did end up helping by conributing around $300 million dollars to the war effort. -
Initiating legalisation of same sex marriage
He announced the bill, that allowed same-sex couples equal marriage rights. A draft of the bill was released a month later, by the Liberal Minister of Justice. The hope was to change the definition of mariage from "the union of one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others" to " is the lawful union of two persons to the exclusion of all others" instead. -
New election
He then retired and a new election led to a different prime minister.
