at all. Trudeau was extremely close to the West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt, and during the 1978 G7 summit in Bonn, Trudeau had extensive discussions with his friend Schmidt about how best to win re-election in 1979. Schmidt suggested to Trudeau that he respond to criticism of the deficits he had been running by bringing in some big cuts to spending, an idea that Trudeau took up. In 1978 Trudeau announced in a press statement $2 billion in cuts without bothering to inform Chrétien beforehand about what he had decided to do, leaving his finance minister looking clueless in the resulting press interview. Chrétien found this experience so humiliating that he seriously considering resigning in protest. Chrétien was especially humiliated by the fact that Chancellor Schmidt was better informed of about what was going to happen than he was, which underlined that he was not a member of Trudeau's inner circle. Chrétien presented the two federal budgets to the House floor in 1978, one in April and the other in November. Major role in referendum campaign The Liberals lost the federal election of May 1979 to a minority Conservative government led by Joe Clark. When Pierre Trudeau regained power in February 1980, he appointed Chrétien as minister of justice and attorney general. In this role, he was a major force in the 1980 Quebec referendum, being one of the main federal representatives "on the ground" during the campaign. His fiery and emotional speeches would enthrall federalist crowds with his blunt warnings of the consequences of separation. During the 1980 referendum, Chrétien fiercely fought behind the scenes with the leader of the Quebec Liberals, Claude Ryan, who served as the chairman of the non committee about the best course to follow, with Ryan favoring a more Quebec nationalist message as opposed to Chrétien's unabashed Canadian nationalist message. Chrétien delivered an average of six or seven speeches a day during the 1980 referendum all across Quebec and always managed to work in a local reference in every speech. Patriation of the Constitution He also served as minister of state for social development and minister responsible for constitutional negotiations, playing a significant role in the patriation struggle of 1980–81 which led to the Constitution of Canada in 1982. On September 28, 1981, the Supreme Court ruled that the federal government could patriate the British North America Act without the consent of the provinces,