title: Dr. Watson

text: As the first-person narrator of Doyle's Holmes stories, Watson has inspired the creation of many similar narrator characters. After the appearance of Watson, the use of a "Watsonian narrator", a character like Watson who has a reason to be close to the detective but cannot follow or understand the detective's line of investigation, became "a standard feature of the classical detective story". This type of character has been called "the Watson".


title: Dr. Watson

text: The Holmes-Watson partnership, consisting of a "brilliant yet flawed detective" and a "humbler but dependable and sympathetic sidekick", influenced the creation of similar teams in British detective fiction throughout the twentieth century, from detective Hercule Poirot and Poirot's companion Captain Hastings (created by author Agatha Christie in 1920), to Colin Dexter's Inspector Morse and Sergeant Lewis, introduced in 1975. Watson also influenced the creation of other fictional narrators, such as Bunny Manders (the sidekick of gentleman thief A. J. Raffles, created by E. W. Hornung in 1898) and the American character Archie Goodwin (the assistant of detective Nero Wolfe, created by Rex Stout in 1934). Author Kodō Nomura modeled his characters Heiji Zenigata and his sidekick Hachigoro on Holmes and Watson.


title: Dr. Watson

text: Bruce McRae originated the role of Watson in the 1899 Broadway production of "Sherlock Holmes", a play by William Gillette and Doyle.


title: Dr. Watson

text: Claude King played Watson in the 1910 premiere of "The Speckled Band". In the 1923 play "The Return of Sherlock Holmes", Watson was played by H. G. Stoker. In the 1965 musical "Baker Street", he was played by Peter Sallis.


title: Dr. Watson

text: Derek Waring played Watson in the 1989 London premiere of "". Lucas Hall portrayed Watson in the 2015 premiere of "".


title: Dr. Watson

text: Actors to play Watson in early film adaptations of "Sherlock Holmes" include Edward Fielding (1916), Roland Young (1922), Ian Fleming (1931), Athole Stewart ("The Speckled Band", 1931), Ian Hunter ("The Sign of Four", 1932), Reginald Owen (1932) and Warburton Gamble ("A Study in Scarlet", 1933). The series of Holmes films with Basil Rathbone as Holmes and Nigel Bruce as Watson portrayed the doctor as a lovable but incompetent assistant. Some later treatments have presented a more competent Watson.


title: Dr. Watson

text: Watson was played by actor André Morell in the 1959 film version of "The Hound of the Baskervilles", wherein Morell preferred that his version of Watson should be closer to that originally depicted in Doyle's stories, not Nigel Bruce's interpretation. Other depictions include Robert Duvall opposite Nicol Williamson's Holmes in "The Seven-Per-Cent Solution" (1978); Donald Houston, who played Watson to John Neville's Holmes in "A Study in Terror" (1965); a rather belligerent, acerbic Watson portrayed by Colin Blakely in Billy Wilder's "The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes" (1970), in which Holmes was played by Robert Stephens (who starts the rumour that they are homosexual lovers to discourage female interest); and James Mason's portrayal in "Murder by Decree" (1978), with Christopher Plummer as Holmes. Alan Cox played a teenage Watson in the 1985 film "Young Sherlock Holmes", narrated by Michael Hordern as an older Watson.


title: Dr. Watson

text: In the 1988 parody film "Without a Clue", the roles of a witless Watson and an extremely intelligent Holmes are reversed. In the film, Holmes (Michael Caine) is an invention of Watson (Ben Kingsley) played by an alcoholic actor; when Watson initially offers suggestions on how to solve a case to some visiting policemen, he is at the time applying for a post in an exclusive medical practice and so invents the fictional Holmes to avoid attracting attention to himself. He continues the "lie" of Holmes's existence after he fails to get the post. At the same time, Watson becomes increasingly frustrated that his own talents are unrecognised, and unavailingly attempts to win celebrity for himself as "the Crime Doctor."


title: Dr. Watson

text: In the Guy Ritchie-directed "Sherlock Holmes" movies, Watson is portrayed by Jude Law. Law portrays Watson as knowledgeable, brave, strong-willed, and thoroughly professional, as well as a competent detective in his own right. Apart from being armed with his trademark sidearm, his film incarnation is also a capable swordsman. The film portrays Watson as having a gambling problem, which William S. Baring-Gould had inferred from a reference in "The Adventure of the Dancing Men" to Holmes keeping Watson's cheque book locked in a drawer in his desk. Law also portrayed Watson in the 2011 sequel, "".


title: Dr. Watson

text: Watson appears on the 2010 direct-to-DVD Asylum film "Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes", a science fiction reinvention in which he was portrayed by actor Gareth David-Lloyd. At the beginning of the film, Watson is an elderly man portrayed by David Shackleton during the Blitz in 1940. He tells his nurse the tale of the adventure which he and Holmes vowed never to tell the public. In 1889, he is a home doctor and personal physician and biographer of Sherlock Holmes (Ben Syder). Here, Watson is portrayed as easily confused by Holmes's abilities, but the story is set in 1881, the same year as "A Study in Scarlet", which may account for this. He is a skilled gunman and is loyal, if often irritated by Holmes's methods.


title: Dr. Watson

text: Watson, portrayed by Colin Starkey, appears briefly in the 2015 film "Mr. Holmes" (although he has no dialogue and his face is not shown). Reflecting on his career as a detective, Holmes (Ian McKellen) comments that Watson took considerable latitude in writing up the cases for publication, to the point that he views the finished products as little more than "penny dreadfuls." Holmes remarks that several key details of his literary counterpart, including his pipe, deerstalker hat, and 221B Baker Street address, were entirely fictitious.


title: Dr. Watson

text: The 2015 mashup anime film "The Empire of Corpses" features a younger, re-imagined Watson as the protagonist, in a steampunk world where the dead are reanimated and used as a labor force. He was voiced by Yoshimasa Hosoya in Japanese, and Jason Liebrecht in the English dub.


title: Dr. Watson

text: The first actor to play Watson on a TV series (as opposed to a one-off adaptation) was Raymond Francis who appeared in the 1951 British series, "We Present Alan Wheatley as Mr. Sherlock Holmes in...".


title: Dr. Watson

text: The 1950s Sherlock Holmes US TV series featured Howard Marion-Crawford as a stable Watson with a knockout punch.


title: Dr. Watson

text: In the Soviet Sherlock Holmes television film series, directed by Igor Maslennikov, Watson was played by Vitaly Solomin.


title: Dr. Watson

text: Watson was portrayed by David Burke and later by Edward Hardwicke in the 1980s and 1990s television series "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes", "The Return of Sherlock Holmes", "The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes" and "The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes," all starring Jeremy Brett as Holmes.


title: Dr. Watson

text: In the animated TV series "Sherlock Holmes in the 22nd Century" (1999–2001), Holmes acquires a 'new' Watson in the form of a robot. The robot, having absorbed all lore of the original, believes itself to be Watson, and Holmes treats it as such, concluding that the "spirit" is Watson's though the "body" is not.


title: Dr. Watson

text: Ian Hart portrayed a young, capable, and fit Watson twice for BBC Television, once opposite Richard Roxburgh as Holmes (in a 2002 adaptation of "The Hound of the Baskervilles") and for a second time opposite Rupert Everett as the Great Detective in the new story "Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Silk Stocking" (2004).


title: Dr. Watson

text: In the TV series "Sanctuary", Dr. James Watson (Peter Wingfield) is a member of "The Five" and the actual detective in the Doyle stories. The character of Holmes is created and Watson is made his sidekick at Watson's request to Doyle.


title: Dr. Watson

text: In the 2010 BBC television show "Sherlock", Martin Freeman portrays Watson as a discharged military doctor who strikes a complicated yet good friendship with the brilliant but eccentric Holmes (Benedict Cumberbatch). As with the original character, Watson served in the British Army in Afghanistan. The adaptation is set in contemporary London.


title: Dr. Watson

text: The 2012 CBS show ""Elementary"", set in New York City, changes the character to an Asian American woman, Dr. Joan Watson (Lucy Liu), an ex-surgeon turned sober companion.


title: Dr. Watson

text: In the 2013 Russian adaptation "Sherlock Holmes", Watson is portrayed as older than Holmes. The character was played by Andrei Panin, in his last role, as he died shortly after the filming was finished.


title: Dr. Watson

text: In the 2014 Japanese puppetry series "Sherlock Holmes", Watson, a doctor's son and transfer student from Australia, becomes the roommate of Sherlock Holmes in 221B of Baker House. Though initially at a loss as to how to deal with Holmes, he becomes close to his strange roommate. He records Holmes' investigation in a notebook known as "Watoson memo" ("Memo of John H. Watson") and writes articles based on it for the school's wall newspaper. Wataru Takagi voices him and narrates the show.


title: Dr. Watson

text: In the 2018 Japanese drama series "Miss Sherlock" both lead characters are re-imagined as female. Dr. Wato Tachibana (Shihori Kanjiya) meets Sara "Sherlock" Futaba (Yuko Takeuchi) after becoming the witness of her mentor’s death. Soon she assists her in this event’s investigation and becomes her flatmate, friend and assistant. Sherlock calls her "Wato-san", which sounds similar to "Watson".


title: Dr. Watson

text: In the 2019 Japanese animated series "", Yuichi Nakamura voices a reimagined Watson who is an assistant to Holmes in Kabukicho.


title: Dr. Watson

text: For most of the run of the 1930–1936 radio series "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes", Leigh Lovell played Watson with Richard Gordon as Holmes.


title: Dr. Watson

text: Nigel Bruce reprised his film role of Watson on the radio opposite first Basil Rathbone, then Tom Conway as Holmes for most of the 1940s radio series "The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes". Different actors played Watson in later seasons.


title: Dr. Watson

text: Carleton Hobbs portrayed Holmes in a series of BBC radio broadcasts that ran from 1952 to 1969, with Norman Shelley playing Watson. Many of these were broadcast on Children's Hour. Of the many actors who have portrayed Holmes and Watson for the BBC, the Hobbs and Shelley duo is the longest running.


title: Dr. Watson

text: In 1954, Sir Ralph Richardson played Watson (named James rather than John) in a short radio series on NBC opposite Sir John Gielgud as Holmes.


title: Dr. Watson

text: Watson was also portrayed by English-born actor Michael Williams for the BBC Radio adaptation of the complete run of the Holmes canon from November 1989 to July 1998. Williams, together with Clive Merrison, who played Holmes, were the first actors to portray the Doyle characters in all the short stories and novels of the canon. After Williams' death, the BBC continued the shows with "The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes". Four series were produced, all written by Bert Coules who had been the head writer on the complete canon project, with Andrew Sachs starring opposite Merrison.


title: Dr. Watson

text: In 1998, "Imagination Theatre" received the rights from the estate of Dame Jean Conan Doyle to produce new radio stories of Holmes and Watson. Lawrence Albert plays Watson to the Holmes of first John Gilbert and later John Patrick Lowrie in the radio series "The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes". Lowrie and Albert also played Holmes and Watson respectively in "The Classic Adventures of Sherlock Holmes", which adapted all of Doyle's short stories and novels.


title: Dr. Watson

text: Watson appears alongside Holmes in multiple Sherlock Holmes video games, such as "" (1991) and its two sequels, and "The Lost Files of Sherlock Holmes" (1992) and its sequel. Watson also appears with Holmes in the "Sherlock Holmes" series of video games developed by Frogwares.


title: Dr. Watson

text: Watson appears at the start of "" (2015), where he is murdered while teaching in Japan. His role as an assistant to Sherlock Holmes is instead filled by another character named Iris Watson, who claims to be his daughter and uses "Dr. John H. Watson" as a pen name. Both Watsons had their names changed to Wilson due to copyright concerns in international releases.


title: Dr. Watson

text: Stephen King, the American novelist, wrote a short story called "The Doctor's Case" in the 1993 collection "Nightmares & Dreamscapes", where Watson actually solves the case instead of Holmes. Watson appears as a supporting character in several of American author Laurie R. King's Mary Russell detective novels.


title: Dr. Watson

text: American author Michael Mallory began a series of stories in the mid-1990s featuring Watson's mysterious second wife, whom he called Amelia Watson. In "Sherlock Holmes's War of the Worlds", Watson's second wife is Violet Hunter, from "The Adventure of the Copper Beeches".


title: Caterina Scorsone

text: Caterina Scorsone (born October 16, 1981) is a Canadian-American actress. She is best known for playing Dr. Amelia Shepherd on the ABC medical drama "Grey's Anatomy" (2010–present) and its spin-offs "Private Practice" (2010–2013) and "Station 19" (2018–present). Prior to this, she made her debut as a child actor on the Canadian children's program, "Mr. Dressup". She also appeared in a number of films, including 2010's "Edge of Darkness" and 2014's "The November Man". Other television credits include Jess Mastriani on "Missing", Callie Wilkinson on "Crash", and Alice Hamilton on "Alice".


title: Caterina Scorsone

text: Scorsone was born in Toronto, Ontario. She is the middle child of five in her family. Her father, Antonio Bruno Scorsone, is a social worker, and her mother, Suzanne Rozell Scorsone, is a social anthropologist. She is of half Italian descent. Her four siblings include: older twin sisters (b. 1977) Jovanna and Francesca (who serves as a chaplain in the Canadian Army, holding the rank of major), and a younger sister (Deborah Scorsone) and brother. She attended the Cardinal Carter Academy for the Arts in Toronto, as well as alternative school Subway Academy II. In addition, she attended Trinity College in the University of Toronto, majoring in Literary Studies and minoring in Philosophy, and in 2005 finished her studies there.


title: Caterina Scorsone

text: Scorsone's first TV appearances were in Goosebumps adaptation of Night of the Living Dummy 2, then she progressed to regular guest spots as a child on the Canadian children's TV show "Mr. Dressup". In 1998, she had a role in one installment of CBC Radio's "The Mystery Project" called "Peggy Delaney" as Amber, an estranged fifteen-year-old daughter who comes from Vancouver to stay with her mom for a school term in Toronto.


title: Caterina Scorsone

text: Scorsone had her breakthrough after landing the leading role in the Lifetime crime drama series "Missing", from 2003 to 2006. She played the part of Jess Mastriani, a young woman who sees missing persons in visions. After Jess saved some missing persons, she joined the FBI, where a special squad was formed around her, to find missing persons. In 2009, she starred as Alice Hamilton on the Showcase TV miniseries "Alice" which was later broadcast on Syfy in America.


title: Caterina Scorsone

text: In 2010, Scorsone joined the cast of Shonda Rhimes' drama series "Private Practice" in the recurring role of Dr. Amelia Shepherd, the sister of Derek Shepherd from "Grey's Anatomy". She was cast after Eric Stoltz, who was directing one of the show's episodes, heard about the role of Amelia and remembered Scorsone from working with her on "My Horrible Year!" He mentioned her to Shonda Rhimes and commented on the resemblance Scorsone had to Patrick Dempsey (the actor who plays Derek Shepherd). As of July 2010, Scorsone had been promoted to series regular for "Private Practice". She appeared in the third episode of the seventh season of "Grey's Anatomy" where Amelia and Derek started to reconcile their differences.


title: Caterina Scorsone

text: In March 2014, Scorsone returned to "Grey's Anatomy" after a two-year absence as a recurring guest star. In June of the same year, it was announced that she was promoted to series regular status for the show's eleventh season.


title: Caterina Scorsone

text: Scorsone married Rob Giles of The Rescues in June 2009. They have three daughters: Eliza (born July 6, 2012), Paloma Michaela "Pippa" (born November 8, 2016) and Arwen Lucinda "Lucky" (born December 13, 2019).


title: Caterina Scorsone

text: Her first pregnancy was written into her character's storyline in season 5 of "Private Practice," her second pregnancy was not featured in "Grey's Anatomy", and her third pregnancy was written into her character's storyline on season 16 of "Grey's Anatomy".


title: Caterina Scorsone

text: She has become an outspoken advocate for children who were born with Down syndrome and other cognitive disabilities, since the birth of her second daughter, Pippa, who was born with the syndrome. She received the Quincy Jones Exceptional Advocacy Award from the Global Down Syndrome Foundation on November 14, 2020, for her advocacy.


title: Caterina Scorsone

text: Scorsone and Giles separated in March 2020. In May 2020, they filed for divorce after ten years of marriage.


title: Textile industry

text: The textile industry is primarily concerned with the design, production and distribution of yarn, cloth and clothing. The raw material may be natural, or synthetic using products of the chemical industry.


title: Textile industry

text: Cotton is the world's most important natural fibre. In the year 2007, the global yield was 25 million tons from 35 million hectares cultivated in more than 50 countries.


title: Textile industry

text: Artificial fibres can be made by extruding a polymer, through a spinneret (polymers) into a medium where it hardens. Wet spinning (rayon) uses a coagulating medium. In dry spinning (acetate and triacetate), the polymer is contained in a solvent that evaporates in the heated exit chamber. In melt spinning (nylons and polyesters) the extruded polymer is cooled in gas or air and then sets. Some examples of synthetic fibers are; polyester, rayon, acrylic fibers and microfibers. All these fibres will be of great length, often kilometres long. Synthetic fibers are more durable than most natural fibers and will readily pick-up different dyes .


title: Textile industry

text: Artificial fibres can be processed as long fibres or batched and cut so they can be processed like a natural fibre.


title: Textile industry

text: Sheep, goats, rabbits, silkworms, and other animals, as well as minerals like asbestos, are sources of natural fibers (cotton, flax, sisal). These vegetable fibers can originate from the seed (cotton), the stem (bast fibres: flax, hemp, jute), or the leaf (sisal). All of these sources require a number of steps, each of which has a distinct name, before a clean, even staple is produced. All of these fibers, with the exception of silk, are short, only a few centimeters long, and have a rough surface that allows them to adhere to other like staples .


title: Textile industry

text: There are some indications that weaving was already known in the Palaeolithic. An indistinct textile impression has been found at Pavlov, Moravia. Neolithic textiles were found in pile dwellings excavations in Switzerland and at El Fayum, Egypt at a site which dates to about 5000 BC.


title: Textile industry

text: In Roman times, wool, linen and leather clothed the European population, and silk, imported along the Silk Road from China, was an extravagant luxury. The use of flax fiber in the manufacturing of cloth in Northern Europe dates back to Neolithic times.


title: Textile industry

text: During the late medieval period, cotton began to be imported into Northern Europe. Without any knowledge of what it came from, other than that it was a plant, noting its similarities to wool, people in the region could only imagine that cotton must be produced by plant-borne sheep. John Mandeville, writing in 1350, stated as fact the now-preposterous belief: "There grew in India a wonderful tree which bore tiny lambs on the edges of its branches. These branches were so pliable that they bent down to allow the lambs to feed when they are hungry." This aspect is retained in the name for cotton in many European languages, such as German "Baumwolle", which translates as "tree wool". By the end of the 16th century, cotton was cultivated throughout the warmer regions of Asia and the Americas.


title: Textile industry

text: The main steps in the production of cloth are producing the fibre, preparing it, converting it to yarn, converting yarn to cloth, and then finishing the cloth. The cloth is then taken to the manufacturer of garments. The preparation of the fibres differs the most, depending on the fibre used. Flax requires retting and dressing, while wool requires carding and washing. The spinning and weaving processes are very similar between fibers, however.


title: Textile industry

text: Spinning evolved from twisting the fibers by hand, to using a drop spindle, to using a spinning wheel. Spindles or parts of them have been found in archaeological sites and may represent one of the first pieces of technology available. The spinning wheel was most likely invented in the Islamic world by the 11th century.


title: Textile industry

text: The textile industry in India traditionally, after agriculture, is the only industry that has generated huge employment for both skilled and unskilled labour in textiles. The textile industry continues to be the second-largest employment generating sector in India. It offers direct employment to over 35 million in the country. According to the Ministry of Textiles, the share of textiles in total exports during April–July 2010 was 11.04%. During 2009–2010, the Indian textile industry was pegged at 55 billion, 64% of which services domestic demand. In 2010, there were 2,500 textile weaving factories and 4,135 textile finishing factories in all of India. According to AT Kearney’s ‘Retail Apparel Index’, India was ranked as the fourth most promising market for apparel retailers in 2009.


title: Textile industry

text: India is first in global jute production and shares 63% of the global textile and garment market. India is second in global textile manufacturing and also second in silk and cotton production. 100% FDI is allowed via automatic route in textile sector. Rieter, Trutzschler, Saurer, Soktas, Zambiati, Bilsar, Monti, CMT, E-land, Nisshinbo, Marks & Spencer, Zara, Promod, Benetton, and Levi’s are some of the foreign textile companies invested or working in India.


title: Textile industry

text: The key British industry at the beginning of the 18th century was the production of textiles made with wool from the large sheep-farming areas in the Midlands and across the country (created as a result of land-clearance and enclosure). This was a labour-intensive activity providing employment throughout Britain, with major centres being the West Country; Norwich and environs; and the West Riding of Yorkshire. The export trade in woolen goods accounted for more than a quarter of British exports during most of the 18th century, doubling between 1701 and 1770. The British textile industry drove the Industrial revolution, triggering advancements in technology, stimulating the coal and iron industries, boosting raw material imports, and improving transportation, which made Britain the global leader of industrialization, trade, and scientific innovation.


title: Textile industry

text: Exports by the cotton industry – centered in Lancashire – had grown tenfold during this time, but still accounted for only a tenth of the value of the woolen trade. Before the 17th century, the manufacture of goods was performed on a limited scale by individual workers, usually on their own premises (such as weavers' cottages). Goods were transported around the country by clothiers who visited the village with their trains of packhorses. Some of the cloth was made into clothes for people living in the same area, and a large amount of cloth was exported. River navigations were constructed, and some contour-following canals. In the early 18th century, artisans were inventing ways to become more productive. Silk, wool, fustian, and linen were being eclipsed by cotton, which was becoming the most important textile. This set the foundations for the changes.


title: Textile industry

text: The cotton industry in Catalonia was the first industry in Spain to industrialise and led, by the mid 19th century, to Catalonia becoming the main industrial region of Spain, a position it maintained until well into the 20th century. Catalonia is the one Mediterranean exception to the tendency of early industrialisation to be concentrated in northern Europe.


title: Textile industry

text: The industry began in the early 18th century in Barcelona, when printed cloth chintz (Catalan: indianes) was produced as an import substitution. The market quickly expanded to the American colonies from where dyes and (later) cotton raw materials could be sourced. Spinning was a late addition to the industry and took off after English spinning technology was introduced at the turn of the 19th century. Industrialisation of the industry occurred in the 1830s after adoption of the factory system, and the removal of restrictions by Britain on the emigration of expert labour (1825) and of machinery (1842). Steam power was introduced but the cost of imported coal and steam engines, led to the extensive use of hydraulic power from the late 1860s.


title: Textile industry

text: The woven fabric portion of the textile industry grew out of the industrial revolution in the 18th century as mass production of yarn and cloth became a mainstream industry.


title: Textile industry

text: In 1734 in Bury, Lancashire John Kay invented the flying shuttle — one of the first of a series of inventions associated with the cotton woven fabric industry. The flying shuttle increased the width of cotton cloth and speed of production of a single weaver at a loom. Resistance by workers to the perceived threat to jobs delayed the widespread introduction of this technology, even though the higher rate of production generated an increased demand for spun cotton.


title: Textile industry

text: In 1761, the Duke of Bridgewater's canal connected Manchester to the coal fields of Worsley and in 1762, Matthew Boulton opened the Soho Foundry engineering works in Handsworth, Birmingham. His partnership with Scottish engineer James Watt resulted, in 1775, in the commercial production of the more efficient Watt steam engine which used a separate condenser.


title: Textile industry

text: In 1764, James Hargreaves is credited as inventor of the spinning jenny which multiplied the spun thread production capacity of a single worker — initially eightfold and subsequently much further. Others credit the invention to Thomas Highs. Industrial unrest and a failure to patent the invention until 1770 forced Hargreaves from Blackburn, but his lack of protection of the idea allowed the concept to be exploited by others. As a result, there were over 20,000 spinning jennies in use by the time of his death. Also in 1764, Thorp Mill, the first water-powered cotton mill in the world was constructed at Royton, Lancashire, and was used for carding cotton. With the spinning and weaving process now mechanized, cotton mills cropped up all over the North West of England.


title: Textile industry

text: The stocking frame invented in 1589 for silk became viable when in 1759, Jedediah Strutt introduced an attachment for the frame which produced what became known as the Derby Rib, that produced a knit and purl stitch. This allowed stockings to be manufactured in silk and later in cotton. In 1768, Hammond modified the stocking frame to weave weft-knitted openworks or nets by crossing over the loops, using a mobile tickler bar- this led in 1781 to Thomas Frost's square net. Cotton had been too coarse for lace, but by 1805 Houldsworths of Manchester were producing reliable 300 count cotton thread.


title: Textile industry

text: With the Cartwright Loom, the Spinning Mule and the Boulton & Watt steam engine, the pieces were in place to build a mechanised woven fabric textile industry. From this point there were no new inventions, but a continuous improvement in technology as the mill-owner strove to reduce cost and improve quality. Developments in the transport infrastructure; that is the canals and after 1831 the railways facilitated the import of raw materials and export of finished cloth.


title: Textile industry

text: Firstly, the use of water power to drive mills was supplemented by steam driven water pumps, and then superseded completely by the steam engines. For example, Samuel Greg joined his uncle's firm of textile merchants, and, on taking over the company in 1782, he sought out a site to establish a mill.Quarry Bank Mill was built on the River Bollin at Styal in Cheshire. It was initially powered by a water wheel, but installed steam engines in 1810. Quarry Bank Mill in Cheshire still exists as a well-preserved museum, having been in use from its construction in 1784 until 1959. It also illustrates how the mill owners exploited child labour, taking orphans from nearby Manchester to work the cotton. It shows that these children were housed, clothed, fed and provided with some education. In 1830, the average power of a mill engine was 48 hp, but Quarry Bank mill installed a new 100 hp water wheel. William Fairbairn addressed the problem of line-shafting and was responsible for improving the efficiency of the mill. In 1815 he replaced the wooden turning shafts that drove the machines at 50rpm, to wrought iron shafting working at 250 rpm, these were a third of the weight of the previous ones and absorbed less power.


title: Textile industry

text: Secondly, in 1830, using an 1822 patent, Richard Roberts manufactured the first loom with a cast iron frame, the Roberts Loom. In 1842 James Bullough and William Kenworthy, made the Lancashire Loom, a semiautomatic power loom: although it is self-acting, it has to be stopped to recharge empty shuttles. It was the mainstay of the Lancashire cotton industry for a century, until the Northrop Loom (invented in 1894, with an automatic weft replenishment function) gained ascendancy.


title: Textile industry

text: Thirdly, also in 1830, Richard Roberts patented the first self-acting mule. Stalybridge mule spinners strike was in 1824; this stimulated research into the problem of applying power to the winding stroke of the mule. The draw while spinning had been assisted by power, but the push of the wind had been done manually by the spinner, the mule could be operated by semiskilled labor. Before 1830, the spinner would operate a partially powered mule with a maximum of 400 spindles; after, self-acting mules with up to 1300 spindles could be built.


title: Textile industry

text: The industrial revolution changed the nature of work and society The three key drivers in these changes were textile manufacturing, iron founding and steam power. The geographical focus of textile manufacture in Britain was Manchester and the small towns of the Pennines and southern Lancashire.


title: Textile industry

text: Textile production in England peaked in 1926, and as mills were decommissioned, many of the scrapped mules and looms were bought up and reinstated in India.


title: Textile industry

text: Major changes came to the textile industry during the 20th century, with continuing technological innovations in machinery, synthetic fibre, logistics, and globalization of the business. The business model that had dominated the industry for centuries was to change radically. Cotton and wool producers were not the only source for fibres, as chemical companies created new synthetic fibres that had superior qualities for many uses, such as rayon, invented in 1910, and DuPont's nylon, invented in 1935 as in inexpensive silk substitute, and used for products ranging from women's stockings to tooth brushes and military parachutes.


title: Textile industry

text: The variety of synthetic fibres used in manufacturing fibre grew steadily throughout the 20th century. In the 1920s, the computer was invented; in the 1940s, acetate, modacrylic, metal fibres, and saran were developed; acrylic, polyester, and spandex were introduced in the 1950s. Polyester became hugely popular in the apparel market, and by the late 1970s, more polyester was sold in the United States than cotton.


title: Textile industry

text: By the late 1980s, the apparel segment was no longer the largest market for fibre products, with industrial and home furnishings together representing a larger proportion of the fibre market. Industry integration and global manufacturing led to many small firms closing for good during the 1970s and 1980s in the United States; during those decades, 95 percent of the looms in North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia shut down, and Alabama and Virginia also saw many factories close.


title: Textile industry

text: The largest exporters of textiles in 2013 were China ($274 billion), India ($40 billion), Italy ($36 billion), Germany ($35 billion), Bangladesh ($28 billion) and Pakistan ($27 Billion).


title: Textile industry

text: The textile sector accounts for 70% of Pakistan's exports. The industry's contribution in the nation's exports account for 8.5% of the total GDP. Textile exports stood at $4.4 billion in 2017-2018. The industry employs a large section of the labour force in the country.


title: Textile industry

text: Pakistan is the 4th largest producer of cotton with the third largest spinning capacity in Asia. It contributes 5% to the global spinning capacity. At present, there are 1,221 ginning units, 442 spinning units and 124 large spinning units in addition to 425 small units which produce textiles. Pakistan is the third largest consumer of cotton. Exports of $3.5 billion were recorded in 2017- 2018(6.5% of the total exported cotton on the world)


title: Textile industry

text: In 1950, textile manufacturing emerged as the central of Pakistan industrialisation. Between 1947 and 2000, the number of textile Mills increased from 3 to 600. In the same time, spindles increased in number from 177,000 to 805 million. The textile industry provides 45% of the bank redit in Pakistan.


title: Textile industry

text: Many Western multinationals use labor in Bangladesh, which is one of the cheapest in the world: 30 euros per month compared to 150 or 200 in China. Four days is enough for the CEO of one of the top five global textile brands to earn what a Bangladeshi garment worker will earn in her lifetime. In April 2013, at least 1,135 textile workers died in the collapse of their factory. Other fatal accidents due to unsanitary factories have affected Bangladesh: in 2005 a factory collapsed and caused the death of 64 people. In 2006, a series of fires killed 85 people and injured 207 others. In 2010, some 30 people died of asphyxiation and burns in two serious fires.


title: Textile industry

text: In 2006, tens of thousands of workers mobilized in one of the country's largest strike movements, affecting almost all of the 4,000 factories. The Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) uses police forces to crack down. Three workers were killed, and hundreds more were wounded by bullets, or imprisoned. In 2010, after a new strike movement, nearly 1,000 people were injured among workers as a result of the repression.


title: Textile industry

text: Employees of Ethiopian garment factories, who work for brands such as Guess, H&M or Calvin Klein, receive a monthly salary of 26 dollars per month. These very low wages have led to low productivity, frequent strikes and high turnover. Some factories have replaced all their employees on average every 12 months, according to the 2019 report of the Stern Centre for Business and Human Rights at New York University.


title: Textile industry

text: The report states:" Rather than the docile and cheap labour force promoted in Ethiopia, foreign-based suppliers have met employees who are unhappy with their pay and living conditions and who want to protest more and more by stopping work or even quitting. In their eagerness to create a "made in Ethiopia" brand, the government, global brands and foreign manufacturers did not anticipate that the base salary was simply too low for workers to make a living from. »


title: Textile industry

text: The Multi Fibre Arrangement (MFA) governed the world trade in textiles and garments from 1974 through 2004, imposing quotas on the amount developing countries could export to developed countries. It expired on 1 January 2005.


title: Textile industry

text: The MFA was introduced in 1974 as a short-term measure intended to allow developed countries to adjust to imports from the developing world. Developing countries have a natural advantage in textile production because it is labor-intensive and they have low labor costs. According to a World Bank/International Monetary Fund (IMF) study, the system has cost the developing world 27 million jobs and $40 billion a year in lost exports.


title: Textile industry

text: However, the Arrangement was not negative for all developing countries. For example, the European Union (EU) imposed no restrictions or duties on imports from the very poor countries, such as Bangladesh, leading to a massive expansion of the industry there.


title: Textile industry

text: At the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) Uruguay Round, it was decided to bring the textile trade under the jurisdiction of the World Trade Organization (WTO). The WTO Agreement on Textiles and Clothing provided for the gradual dismantling of the quotas that existed under the MFA. This process was completed on 1 January 2005. However, large tariffs remain in place on many textile products.


title: Textile industry

text: Bangladesh was expected to suffer the most from the ending of the MFA, as it was expected to face more competition, particularly from China. However, this was not the case. It turns out that even in the face of other economic giants, Bangladesh's labor is “cheaper than anywhere else in the world.” While some smaller factories were documented making pay cuts and layoffs, most downsizing was essentially speculative – the orders for goods kept coming even after the MFA expired. In fact, Bangladesh's exports increased in value by about $500 million in 2006.


title: Textile industry

text: For textiles, like for many other products, there are certain national and international standards and regulations that need to be complied with to ensure quality, safety and sustainability.


title: Jean Chrétien

text: Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien (; born January 11, 1934) is a Canadian lawyer and politician who served as the 20th prime minister of Canada from 1993 to 2003.


title: Jean Chrétien

text: Born and raised in Shawinigan Falls, Quebec, Chrétien is a law graduate from Université Laval. A Liberal, he was first elected to the House of Commons in 1963. He served in various cabinet posts under Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, most prominently as minister of Indian affairs and northern development, president of the Treasury Board, minister of finance, and minister of justice. He ran unsuccessfully for the leadership of the Liberal Party in 1984, losing to John Turner. Chrétien served as the second deputy prime minister of Canada in Turner's short-lived government which would be defeated in the 1984 federal election. After Turner led the Liberals to their second defeat at the polls in 1988, Chrétien became leader of the Liberals and leader of the Opposition in 1990, returning to politics after briefly working in the private sector. In the 1993 federal election, Chrétien led the Liberals to a strong majority government before leading the party to two additional majorities in 1997 and 2000.


title: Jean Chrétien

text: Chrétien was strongly opposed to the Quebec sovereignty movement. He won a narrow victory as leader of the federalist camp in the 1995 Quebec referendum, and then pioneered the "Clarity Act" to avoid ambiguity in future referendum questions. His government also established the long-gun registry, advanced the "Youth Criminal Justice Act", laid the groundwork to legalize same-sex marriage, and eliminated the nearly-30-year old budget deficit mainly through spending cuts. He implemented several major environmental laws, including an updated "Canadian Environmental Protection Act", the "Pest Control Products Act", and the "Species At Risk Act". In foreign policy, Chrétien ordered Canadian military intervention during the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia and the War in Afghanistan but opposed participation in the Iraq War. Although his popularity and that of the Liberal Party were seemingly unchallenged for three consecutive federal elections, he became subject to various political controversies. He was accused of inappropriate behaviour in the Shawinigate and sponsorship scandals, although he has consistently denied any wrongdoing. He also became embroiled in within the Liberal Party against his finance minister and long-time political rival Paul Martin. In December 2003, as a result of the threat of losing a leadership review and pressure from the pro-Martin faction of the party, Chrétien resigned as prime minister and retired from politics. Chrétien places highly in rankings of Canadian prime ministers. At age , Chrétien is the oldest living former Canadian prime minister.


title: Jean Chrétien

text: Chrétien was born on January 11, 1934, in Shawinigan Falls, Quebec, as the 18th of 19 children (10 of whom did not survive infancy), of Marie (née Boisvert, died 1954) and Wellie Chrétien (died 1980). The working-class Chrétien family was poor, and Chrétien had to wear clothing that had been worn by his siblings as his parents were too indigent to buy new clothing for him. Chrétien's parents wanted their children to escape a working-class life in Shawinigan by attending a classical college, which was the only way one could attend university in Quebec at the time. Chrétien's father made him read the dictionary as a young boy. Chrétien's older brother Maurice won a scholarship at the insurance company he was working for, which allowed him to attend medical school, and with the profits from his medical practice, was able to assist his younger siblings to attend the classical colleges. Wellie Chrétien was a staunch Liberal who once got to shake hands as a young man with his hero, Sir Wilfrid Laurier. The local parish priest, Father Auger, a supporter of the Union Nationale who hated all Liberals as "ungodly," spread malicious rumours about the Liberal Chrétien family, saying he would never let a teenage girl go on a date unchaperoned with any of the Chrétien boys, which caused the young Jean Chrétien to have troubled relations with the Catholic church.


title: Jean Chrétien

text: During World War II, the Canadian nationalist Wellie Chrétien had attracted much public disapproval by being a staunch supporter of the war effort, and especially by being one of the few French-Canadians in Shawinigan willing to publicly support sending the conscripts (known as "Zombies") to fight overseas. Under the 1940 "National Resources Mobilization Act", the federal government could conscript Canadians only for the defence of Canada, and until late 1944, only volunteers went to fight overseas. In 1940s Quebec, where many French-Canadians were opposed to Canada fighting in the war, and especially to sending the "Zombies" overseas, this made Wellie Chrétien and his family outcasts. Furthermore, during the Grande Noirceur (""Great Darkness"") when Quebec society was dominated by the corrupt Union Nationale patronage machine, the Chrétien family were excluded because of Wellie Chrétien's support for the war. The Union Nationale Premier Maurice Duplessis had been an outspoken opponent of Canadian participation in World War II. Until 1964, Quebec had no public schools, and Chrétien was educated in Catholic schools. Chrétien disliked the Catholic priests who educated him and in turn was disliked by them with one of Chrétien's former teachers, Father François Lanoue, recalling that Chrétien was the only student he ever grabbed by his ears, as he was too unruly. In an interview, Chrétien called his education "unnatural", as he recalled an extremely strict regime where the priests beat anyone bloody who dared to question their authority while teaching via rote learning. One of Chrétien's classmates recalled "We didn't have the right to have feelings or express them".


title: Jean Chrétien

text: Chrétien got his early schooling at a private boys' school in Joliette. He then attended Séminaire Saint-Joseph de Trois-Rivières. He obtained excellent grades and then studied law at Université Laval, the training ground of the French-Canadian elite. As a student at Trois-Rivières, Chrétien later recalled that his best day at that school was his first day when he attacked without provocation another student taller than himself, leading him to proudly remember that: "I really socked it to him bad. In front of everybody!" Chrétien recalled that his assault was meant to send the message to the other students: "Don't mess with Chrétien!" When asked in an interview by his biographer Lawrence Martin what subject he was best at in high school, Chrétien replied: "It was street fighting that I was best at". Despite the thuggish image that he cultivated at Séminaire Saint-Joseph, Chrétien's grades were high, with an education that focused mostly on Catholic theology, the classics, philosophy, and French. When Chrétien graduated from Séminaire Saint-Joseph, Duplessis came to address the class and upon meeting Chrétien asked him if his grandfather was François Chrétien, who once served as mayor of St-Étiene-des-Grès, and if his father was Wellie Chrétien. Upon receiving affirmative answers to both questions, the premier said with disgust, "Then you're a damn "rouge"".


title: Jean Chrétien

text: Later at Laval, Chrétien protested the fact that the law faculty gave the "Revised Statutes of Quebec" free to Union Nationale students while Liberal students had to pay $10 for it, which led him and another student whose family was well connected to meet Duplessis in his office. Duplessis told Chrétien the Union Nationale only rewarded those who had "faith", and if he wanted the book for free, then he should have had "faith", noting that there were no "rights" in Quebec as he was "Le Chef" (""the boss""). At Laval, Chrétien became active in the Young Liberals, becoming president as no one else wanted the job as most students were too frightened to antagonize the Union Nationale. In 1958 he attended the Liberal convention in Ottawa that chose Lester Pearson as the party's leader, and where Chrétien supported Paul Martin Sr.


title: Jean Chrétien

text: Chrétien later drew attention to his humble origins, calling himself "le petit gars de Shawinigan," or the "little guy from Shawinigan". In his youth he suffered from an attack of Bell's palsy, permanently leaving one side of his face partially paralyzed. Chrétien used this in his first Liberal leadership campaign, saying that he was "One politician who didn't talk out of both sides of his mouth." He is also deaf in one ear.


title: Jean Chrétien

text: On September 10, 1957, he married Aline Chaîné, whom he had met when he was 18 and she was 16. They had three children: France (b. 1958), Hubert (b. 1965) and Michel (b. 1968), who was adopted in 1970. France Chrétien Desmarais, who is a lawyer, is married to André Desmarais, the son of Paul Desmarais, Sr., and the president and co-chief executive officer of his father's company, Power Corporation, based in Montreal, Canada. Reflecting Chrétien's poor relations with the Catholic church, the local priest in Shawinigan, Father Auger, refused to marry Chrétien in his church, saying only "bleus" (blues, i.e. Union Nationale supporters) were welcome in his church and "rouges" (reds, i.e. Liberals) were not.


title: Jean Chrétien

text: Chrétien practised law at the Shawinigan firm of Alexandre Gélinas and Joe Lafond until he was first elected to the House of Commons of Canada as a Liberal from the riding of Saint-Maurice–Laflèche in the 1963 election. He represented this Shawinigan-based riding, renamed Saint-Maurice in 1968, for all but eight of the next 41 years. The riding had been won by the Social Credit party in the 1962 election, and Chrétien won the Liberal nomination for the 1963 election as the previous Liberal member of Parliament (MP) decided to retire. Chrétien won the election by portraying the Social Credit MP Gérard Lamy as a "buffoon" who made French-Canadians look stupid. Early in his career, Chrétien was described by Dalton Camp as looking like "the driver of the getaway car," a condescending assessment which stuck with him, and which was often cited by journalists and others throughout his career, and usually considering his eventual success. The only committee assignment he requested, and obtained, during his first term was to the Finance Committee.


title: Jean Chrétien

text: Shortly before the 1965 election, he very briefly served as parliamentary secretary to Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson. When Pearson recruited his "Three Wise Men" consisting of Jean Marchand, Gérard Pelletier and Pierre Trudeau into the cabinet, Chrétien was disappointed at being bypassed, telling Pearson he deserved to be promoted to the cabinet. Starting in 1966, he served for a more substantial period of time as the parliamentary secretary to Minister of Finance Mitchell Sharp. Sharp was to serve as Chrétien's mentor and patron, helping him rise through the ranks.


title: Jean Chrétien

text: In 1967, Chrétien visited western Canada for the first time, which he was curious to see. In Vancouver he declared in a speech about the demands for more powers for Quebec being made by Union Nationale Premier Daniel Johnson that "those who are in favour of a special status [for Quebec] are often separatists who don't want to admit they are separatists", which caused an uproar in Quebec, with Johnson saying he just wanted more powers for Quebec, not independence. When the French President Charles de Gaulle in a speech during his visit to Montreal said ""Vive le Québec libre!"" ("Long Live A Free Quebec!") and compared the Quiet Revolution to the Liberation of France from the Nazis, Chrétien in a cabinet meeting demanded that the government order de Gaulle to leave Canada.


title: Jean Chrétien

text: Chrétien was appointed minister of national revenue in January 1968, making him a junior minister in the cabinet. During the 1968 Liberal leadership race, Chrétien fought hard on behalf of his mentor Sharp, who aspired to lead the Liberal Party. When Sharp withdrew from the race, Chrétien followed Sharp in swinging his support behind the man who eventually won the race, Pierre Trudeau.


title: Jean Chrétien

text: While at Indian Affairs, Chrétien introduced the 1969 White Paper, a proposal to abolish treaties between Canada and First Nations and related legislation including the "Indian Act". Critics charged that the goal was to assimilate First Nations people into the general Canadian population. The paper was widely opposed by First Nations groups, and later abandoned. It was the 1969 White Paper that first brought Chrétien to widespread public attention in English Canada. At a press conference announcing the White Paper, Chrétien openly clashed with Indian activists with one First Nations woman asking Chrétien, "When did we lose our identity?", to which he replied: "When you signed the treaties", which prompted boos and jeers. Another woman from the Iroquois reserve at Brantford asked Chrétien, "How can you come here and ask us to become citizens, when we were here long before you?", noting the Crown had granted the Grand River valley to Joseph Brant in 1784, to which Chrétien had no reply. Cree activist Harold Cardinal attacked Chrétien and Trudeau for the White Paper in his bestselling 1969 book "The Unjust Society", accusing them of "cultural genocide" against the First Nations. To counteract such criticism, Chrétien adopted an Inuit boy from a local orphanage during a 1970 visit to the Northwest Territories. As Indian Affairs minister, Chrétien fell in love with the far north of Canada, whose beauty moved him, and he vacationed in the north every summer during his time while holding the Indian Affairs portfolio.


title: Jean Chrétien

text: During the October Crisis of 1970, Chrétien told Trudeau to "act now, explain later", when Trudeau was hesitant to invoke the "War Measures Act". Eighty-five percent of Canadians agreed with the move. In the 1972 election, Chrétien, who was frightened by a near-defeat in 1968, had a friend Antonio Genest win the Progressive Conservative (PC) nomination, and then run a deliberately inept campaign in order to ensure his re-election. Robert Bourassa, the Liberal premier of Quebec, was a nationalist who frequently pressed for more devolution of federal powers to his province, making him Trudeau's "bête noire", with the two men openly feuding. In 1971, when the Bourassa government began the James Bay Project to develop hydro-electric dams on rivers flowing into James Bay, which was opposed by the local Cree bands who claimed the land slated for development, Chrétien intervened on the side of the Cree. In a speech Chrétien said Bourassa "could go to hell", stated he did not have the right to build on or flood the land claimed by the Cree, and hired lawyers to argue for the Cree in the courts. In November 1973, a judge ruled for the Cree, but a few days later the appeals court ruled for Quebec.


title: Jean Chrétien

text: In 1974, he was appointed President of the Treasury Board; and beginning in 1976, he served as Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce. At the Treasury Board, Chrétien become known as "Doctor No," as he refused in a brusque manner requests from other ministers for more money for their departments. The 1970s were a time of rapid inflation, and Chrétien often clashed with public sector unions who demanded wage increases. At a time when deficits were rising and the Trudeau government was widely seen as drifting, Chrétien's "tough guy" image won him widespread attention with many in the media presenting him one of the few people in the Trudeau cabinet willing to make tough decisions. As industry minister, Chrétien was in charge of the Trudeau government's efforts to "diversify" the economy by trading more with Asia and Europe and less with the United States. Chrétien often complained the high Canadian dollar hindered his efforts to "diversify" trade and he became known for his belief in the value of a low dollar. As industry minister, Chrétien moved to the left, being known for his populist policies, imposing tariffs on clothing made abroad to encourage more production in Canada, and having the government fund the development of the Challenger aircraft.


title: Jean Chrétien

text: In 1977, following the resignation of Finance Minister Donald MacDonald, Chrétien succeeded him. He was the first francophone minister of finance, and remains one of only three francophones to have held that post. Chrétien's time at Finance highlighted his "enforcer" status, namely as someone who often helped to execute Trudeau's policies, but who rarely helped Trudeau to make policy. During his time at Finance, Trudeau completely excluded Chrétien from any role in making financial policy, instead expecting Chrétien to simply carry out the policies that he and his advisors at the PMO had decided beforehand without consulting Chrétien 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.


title: Jean Chrétien

text: 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.


title: Jean Chrétien

text: 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, but also ruled this would be "odious". Chrétien informed the premiers opposing patriation that Ottawa would unilaterally patriate the Constitution, but was willing to talk at a final conference. During the resulting First Ministers conference in November 1981, two of the premiers, Allan Blakeney, the New Democratic premier of Saskatchewan, and Sterling Lyon, the Progressive Conservative premier of Manitoba, made it clear that their principal objection to the proposed Charter of Rights and Freedoms was that it undermined the ancient British tradition of parliamentary supremacy. Ever since the Glorious Revolution of 1688, the principle had always been that Parliament was the supreme law-making body in the land, and both Blakeny and Lyon were concerned that the Charter would give too much power to the courts.


title: Jean Chrétien

text: Chrétien was the chief negotiator of what would be called the "Kitchen Accord," an agreement which led to the agreement of nine provinces to patriation. In the Kitchen Accord, Chrétien, Roy McMurtry and Roy Romanow came up with the compromise of Section 33, the so-called "notwithstanding clause" allowing Parliament and provincial legislatures to overrule the courts in Charter cases. Chrétien remembered that Trudeau "hated" the idea of Section 33 and that he had to tell him: "Pierre, if you don't take the notwithstanding clause, you don't have the Charter." Trudeau only accepted Section 33 when Ontario Premier Bill Davis, who together with New Brunswick Premier Richard Hatfield, were the only premiers supporting the federal government phoned him to say he would not support Trudeau in London if Trudeau did not accept Section 33, which Chrétien remembered changed Trudeau's attitude completely. In a 2012 interview, Chrétien defended the controversial Section 33, saying: "Because some would argue that in a society the elected people have to be supreme — not judges — and I subscribe to that. Look at what happened in the United States where the judges reign according to their so-called philosophy. That is not the tradition here." All of the English-speaking premiers accepted the compromise of Section 33; Quebec Premier René Lévesque did not. Chrétien's role in the dealings would not be forgotten in his native province of Quebec (although the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that Quebec was bound by it). One of Trudeau's aides, Barry Strayer, later said about Chrétien's role in the constitutional battle: "He was able to contemplate compromises that Trudeau would not have been able to. Everybody saw him as a honest broker. Without him you could argue it would not have happened".


title: Jean Chrétien

text: In 1982, Chrétien was appointed Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources. As energy minister, Chrétien was in charge of enforcing the National Energy Program (NEP), a role that helped to make him a hated figure in Alberta. Chrétien himself was doubtful about the value of the NEP, saying at the time of his appointment as energy minister that "We've got to back off on the NEP without destroying our credibility" but upon learning that Trudeau and his right-hand man, Finance Minister Marc Lalonde, were in favor of continuing the NEP, Chrétien decided to fall in line rather than risk his chances of one day winning the Liberal leadership. Chrétien's battles with Alberta Premier Peter Lougheed over the NEP helped to confirm his disdain for provincial politicians whom he saw as petty people only interested in their own provinces at the expense of the nation.


title: Jean Chrétien

text: After Trudeau announced his retirement in early 1984 as Liberal Party leader and prime minister, Chrétien was one of the candidates seeking the leadership of the Liberal Party of Canada. The experience was a hard one for Chrétien, as many of his longtime Cabinet allies supported the bid of John Turner, who was viewed as more electable, much to Chrétien's intense disappointment. During the leadership race in the spring of 1984, Chrétien ran as the defender of the Trudeau era and promised to continue all of Trudeau's policies, unlike Turner, who promised a break with Trudeau. During the leadership race, Chrétien presented himself as a folksy leftish populist and mocked Turner as a right-wing Bay Street snob who was out of touch with ordinary people. Chrétien opposed Turner that the national deficit was not a problem and arguing in a speech, "We have to use the deficit to keep the dignity of our people." Chrétien attracted larger and more enthusiastic crowds than anything that Turner ever managed, but most of the Liberal Party establishment had rallied to Turner when he announced his candidacy in March 1984, which proved to be an insurmountable handicap for Chrétien. Chrétien was thought to be a dark horse until the end but lost on the second ballot to Turner at the leadership convention that June. The Liberal Party president at the time, Iona Campagnolo, introduced Chrétien as "Second on the ballot, but first in our hearts." Turner appointed Chrétien deputy prime minister and secretary of state for external affairs.


title: Jean Chrétien

text: After winning the leadership race, Turner wanted a to forge a reconciliation with Chrétien to lead a united party into the coming general election and so asked Chrétien what terms he would accept. Chrétien, angry about losing the leadership race, asked for terms that he knew that Turner could never give him. Chrétien demanded to be appointed Quebec lieutenant, with control of patronage and organization in Quebec. Turner had already promised the position to André Ouellet in exchange for support in the leadership race. That would have forced Turner to break his promise to Ouellet and so Turner compromised by creating a troika to run Liberal operations in Quebec of Chrétien, Ouellet, and Lalonde. The troika was a sham, and during the 1984 general election, the three members of the troika spent more time feuding with one another than in combating the Conservatives.


title: Jean Chrétien

text: Chrétien's demand for the Quebec lieutenancy was not the only thing that divided him from Turner. Almost immediately, Chrétien and Turner clashed over the issue of an early election. Chrétien advised Turner not to ask the governor general to dissolve Parliament but to keep Parliament in session for the fall of 1984 to give the government a record to run on in a winter election in early 1985. An election had to be called no later than February 1985 since the last election had been in February 1980. Since Turner believed that a boost in the polls after he became prime minister in late June 1984 justified asking for Parliament to be dissolved for an election in September 1984, Chrétien's advice was disregarded.


title: Jean Chrétien

text: Relations between Chrétien and Turner were strained, especially after the Liberals had been severely defeated in the 1984 election. He was one of only 17 Liberal MPs elected from Quebec (the party had won 74 out of 75 seats in 1980). He was also one of only four Liberal MPs from the province elected from a riding outside Montreal.


title: Jean Chrétien

text: Chrétien was a major focal point of dissatisfaction with Turner, with many polls showing his popularity. His 1985 book, "Straight from the Heart", was an instant bestseller that recounted his early life in Shawinigan, his years spent in the House of Commons of Canada as both a member of Parliament and Cabinet minister, and his failed 1984 leadership bid.


title: Jean Chrétien

text: In February 1986, Chrétien, whose relations with Turner were very poor, resigned his seat and left public life for a time. On February 27, 1986, Chrétien, accompanied by his special executive assistant Jean Carle, went to Turner's office to hand in his resignation. Turner forced Chrétien to wait a considerable period of time during which Carle broke down in tears, and Chrétien was visibly angry when Turner finally received them, making for a tense and barely civil meeting. Chrétien's resignation was largely motivated by his desire to organise against Turner better in the leadership review, which was due in the fall of 1986. Now working in the private sector again, Chrétien sat on the boards of several corporations, including the Power Corporation of Canada subsidiary Consolidated Bathurst, the Toronto-Dominion Bank, and the Brick Warehouse Corporation. Chrétien professed to be retired from politics, but he told reporters within days of his retirement, "I will always be a politician. I love politics." Crucially, Chrétien did not disband the campaign organization that he founded in 1984, which suggested that his retirement had always been intended to be temporary.


title: Jean Chrétien

text: In November 1986, when the Liberals held a leadership review, Chrétien attempted to organize against Turner, which led to a bruising battle between factions loyal to the two men. To topple Turner, Chrétien used Turner's penchant for heavy drinking to spread rumors that Turner was an alcoholic who was simply too drunk most of the time to lead the Liberals to power effectively. Chrétien formally claimed to be neutral on the question of the leadership review of Turner's management of the Liberal Party, but behind the scenes, he lobbied as many Liberal MPs and senators as possible for their support in bringing down Turner. The intense emotions stirred up by the 1986 leadership review were well-illustrated when Chrétien arrived to vote in the review, which led a chaotic scene on the convention floor at the Ottawa Convention Centre, as pro-Turner and pro-Chrétien Liberals fought one another with their fists, which led to the police being called to end the violence. Turner won the leadership review, earning about 75% of the delegate vote. Many Liberals believed that if only Chrétien had won the 1984 convention instead of Turner, they would not have lost the 1984 election or at least have lost it less badly.


title: Jean Chrétien

text: In the 1988 election, the Liberals only experienced a moderate recovery, doubling the number of seats they won in 1984. Progressive Conservative Prime Minister Brian Mulroney won a second consecutive majority government. Turner losing for a second time led him to announce his resignation as Liberal leader in 1989, triggering the June 1990 Liberal leadership election. Chrétien returned to politics in 1990 for the purpose of becoming leader.


title: Jean Chrétien

text: Chrétien announced that he would run for the party leadership at the June 1990 Liberal leadership convention in Calgary, Alberta. At a press conference in Ottawa on January 23, 1990, Chrétien declared that he would run to be the leader and proudly stated that the day would be remembered as the beginning of the "Chrétien era" in Canada.


title: Jean Chrétien

text: Chrétien's principal opponent, Paul Martin, was generally seen as the ideological heir to John Turner, and Chrétien was seen to be the ideological heir to Trudeau. The fact that most of the Liberals who had supported Turner in the 1980s supported Martin in 1990 confirmed Chrétien's disdain for Martin, whom he saw as a Bay Street "big shot," like Turner.


title: Jean Chrétien

text: The most controversial issue facing Canada in the first half of 1990 was the Meech Lake Accord of 1987. It proposed a set of constitutional amendments that would have seen a significant devolution of federal powers to the provinces and a clause that would have recognized Quebec as a "distinct society" within Canada. Chrétien had announced in a speech in January 1990 that he was an opponent of Meech Lake but stated that he would support the accord with amendments such as scrapping the controversial "distinct society" clause as written; having the preamble to the constitution instead declare that Quebec was a "distinct society"; and adding a new clause saying if any conflict arose between the constitutional recognition of Quebec as a "distinct society" and the "Charter of Rights and Freedoms", the latter would always prevail. The "distinct society" clause theoretically could have been the basis of a wide-ranging devolution of federal power since the clause might have empowered the Quebec government to pass any law short of secession to protect the "distinct society." That made the clause very popular in Quebec and arose much passionate opposition by many quarters in English Canada. In a much-discussed essay, Trudeau had warned that giving Quebec the constitutional right to be a "distinct society" would mean that Quebec could quite legally start to expel its anglophone minority. Chrétien's proposed amendments would have meant that the constitution would have recognized Quebec as a "distinct society" but effectively gutted any attempt to use that to grant any special powers to Quebec. In private, Chrétien opposed Meech Lake, but the accord was extremely popular in Quebec and so running as an out-and-out opponent of Meech was judged to be too risky politically. That caused Chrétien's public conditional opposition. Meech Lake placed Chrétien in a difficult position, as it was very popular in Quebec and loathed by the Trudeau wing of the Liberals, both of whose support Chrétien needed. Chrétien tried to avoid talking about Meech as much as possible, which was a minefield issue for him; he instead stuck to generalities about national unity. Martin, by contrast, had declared himself an unconditional supporter of Meech Lake as it was; he was also quite willing to talk about his support.


title: Jean Chrétien

text: Chrétien's key campaign man was Jim Karygiannis, who specialized in signing up immigrants to serve as delegates for Chrétien. He signed 9,500 immigrants as Chrétien delegates between January and June 1990. In large part because of Karygiannis and his team, Chrétien had by late April 1990 signed up 1,500 delegates, which made him the clear front-runner compared to Martin's 500 delegates.


title: Jean Chrétien

text: A key moment in the race took place at an all-candidates debate in Montreal on June 2, 1990. The discussion quickly turned to the Meech Lake Accord, which had emerged as the major policy issue that divided Martin and Chrétien. At the debate on June 2, 1990, Martin attempted to force Chrétien to abandon the latter's nuanced position on Meech Lake and speak out for or against it by arguing that Chrétien's position of opposing Meech Lake as it is but being willing to support it with amendments was trying to have it both ways. When Chrétien refused to endorse Meech as it was, young Liberal delegates crowding the hall began to chant "vendu" ("sellout" in French), "you're selling out to the Anglos" and "Judas" at Chrétien. One of Chrétien's aides frenetically asked that Martin "get the fuck out there and do something," as the Young Liberals continued shouting abuse at Chrétien, to his clear discomfort, only to be told that Quebec youth were "hotheads," whom nobody could control. In private, Chrétien was deeply enraged by the incident, claimed that the delegates shouting "vendu" at him were actually Martin supporters from Toronto, and charged that their poor French had betrayed that they had not been from Quebec. Martin denied involvement in "coordinating" any response from the floor or a similar outburst by his supporters at the convention. Ultimately, Chrétien defeated Martin on the first and only ballot, but Chrétien's position on Meech Lake had irreversibly damaged his reputation in his home province.


title: Jean Chrétien

text: As his victory at the convention on June 23, 1990, occurred on the same day that the Meech Lake accord died, Chrétien was heavily criticized in the Quebec media for his opposition to Meech Lake. Photographs of Chrétien embracing Newfoundland Premier Clyde Wells, a prominent opponent of Meech at the convention attracted much negative comment in Quebec. His leadership was also shaken by the defection from the caucus of francophone MPs (and Martin loyalists) Jean Lapierre and Gilles Rocheleau, who claimed that they could not serve under the anti-Meech Chrétien and so left to join the newly founded Bloc Québécois. In a by-election for Laurier—Sainte-Marie on August 13, 1990, Chrétien's hand-picked candidate, Denis Coderre was badly defeated by the Bloc Québécois's Gilles Duceppe, costing the Liberals a riding that they had held since the 1917 election; many attributed this to Chrétien's opposition to the Meech Lake Accord. Upon becoming Liberal leader, Chrétien appointed his friend Eddie Goldenberg as his chief of staff, and formed a leadership team comprising John Rae and David Zussman as his policy advisors, his "surrogate son" Jean Carle as his special executive assistant, Warren Kinsella as his media adviser, and George Radwanski as his speech-writer. All of the Chrétien leadership team that was created in 1990 were later to play prominent roles in the omnipotent Prime Minister's Office during Chrétien's time as prime minister.


title: Jean Chrétien

text: In September 1990, Chrétien seeing a chance to make a strong impression on public opinion after a shaky start as a leader reaped a major windfall after Mulroney introduced an unpopular Goods and Services Tax (GST), which Chrétien decided to vigorously oppose. Traditionally in Canada, the government had levied a 13.5 percent Manufacturer's Sales Tax (MST), which was paid by manufacturers, who passed on the cost of the tax to consumers in the form of higher prices. Since foreign manufacturers did not pay the MST, this placed Canadian companies at a competitive disadvantage in their home market, and to compensate the government had levied tariffs on manufactured imports to maintain a level playing field. When the free trade agreement with the United States came into effect in 1989, the government could no longer levy tariffs on American imports, which led to furious complaints from Canadian industry about having to compete with American companies who did not pay the MST. To save Canadian industry and the jobs of those Canadians employed in manufacturing from being destroyed by American competition, the Mulroney government decided in late 1989 to abolish the MST and replace it with the 7 percent GST, whose costs would be borne by consumers. On the proposed GST, Chrétien was torn between his belief that the GST was economically necessary vs. his desire to score political points by opposing a proposed tax that most Canadians hated, and as such, he was initially vague about where he stood about the GST. It was only in September 1990 after months of vacillation did Chrétien finally make up his mind to oppose the GST.


title: Jean Chrétien

text: Chrétien's decision to oppose the GST in 1990 was taken for reasons of political expediency rather than for principle, namely that Chrétien needed an issue to oppose the government on that would allow him to connect with the public; sources close to Chrétien were later to claim that he had wanted to support the GST bill, but had been forced by his caucus against his will to oppose it. At a Liberal event in the fall of 1990, Chrétien stated that if he became prime minister "the Mulroney GST will disappear", going on to say: "I am opposed to the GST. I have always been opposed to it. And I will be opposed to it, always". To capitalize on widespread public dislike on the proposed GST, Chrétien ordered the Liberal-dominated Senate to defeat the GST bill in late September 1990, leading Mulroney on September 27, 1990, to appoint 8 Conservative senators to give the Tories a majority using a never-before-used section of the "Constitution Act", the so-called "Deadlock Clause". At that point, Chrétien ordered the Liberal senators to filibuster the GST bill, reducing the Senate to scenes of chaos for the entire fall of 1990. On October 24, 1990, a poll revealed that the Liberals had fallen behind the New Democrats, which Chrétien admitted in an interview might have something to do with the scenes of obstructionist, often childish behaviour by the Liberal senators.


title: Jean Chrétien

text: In December 1990, Chrétien returned to the House of Commons after winning a by-election in the safe Liberal riding of Beauséjour, New Brunswick. The incumbent, Fernand Robichaud, stood down in Chrétien's favour, which is traditional practice when a newly elected party leader does not have a seat in House of Commons. Initially, Chrétien had planned to wait until the next general election before running, but was advised by Herb Gray that: "To have credibility, you're got to be in the House. You can't afford to wait two more years until a general election". Gray's appeal changed Chrétien's mind about when to seek a seat in the House of Commons. For much of 1991–92, Chrétien found himself emotionally exhausted after his adopted son Michel was charged with kidnapping, rape, and sodomy against a Montreal woman and was convicted. Michel Chrétien suffered from fetal alcohol spectrum disorder and had a long history of legal trouble.


title: Jean Chrétien

text: In October 1991, Chrétien first gave his views about how best to end the recession which had begun in 1990. Chrétien argued that the answer was a policy of slow devaluation where the dollar would be allowed to decline against other major world currencies, which would have the effect of both pricing out foreign imports and by giving Canadian firms a competitive advantage in world markets, boost exports. However, Chrétien concluded that his planned export offensive powered by a low dollar would come to nothing if other nations maintained tariffs to keep Canadian goods out of their markets. In order to make his plans to export Canada back into prosperity work, Chrétien decided that the solution was globalization. Besides for globalization, Chrétien also argued to combat the recession, the federal government needed to make the system of unemployment insurance less generous, and to end the policy of high interest rates maintained by the Bank of Canada Governor John Crow to achieve his target of zero percent inflation, which Chrétien argued was needlessly crippling the economy.


title: Jean Chrétien

text: In November 1991, Chrétien organised a party conference in Aylmer, Quebec where the Liberals formally disallowed most of the economic nationalism and protectionism of the Pearson-Trudeau years, and instead embraced globalization as the cure for the recession of the early 1990s. Reflecting the changed emphasis, at the Aylmer conference, the Liberals declared their support for the 1987 free trade agreement with the United States, which the party had famously promised to tear up if they won the 1988 election, and instead Mulroney was now denounced for not going far enough in opening up the economy by signing more free trade agreements with other nations.


title: Jean Chrétien

text: Chrétien revealed himself to be a staunch "hard federalist" favouring a strong federal government at the expense of the provinces, much along the same lines as his predecessor Trudeau. However unlike Trudeau, Chrétien supported the Charlottetown Accord of August 1992, which proposed devolving federal powers to the provinces and once again recognized Quebec as a "distinct society". Chrétien endorsed the Charlottetown accord on the rather negative grounds that the constitutional debate of the late 1980s-early 1990s were destroying Canada, saying it "was bleeding the nation to death" and that Charlottetown was the best way of ending that debate in order to move political debate back to the economic recession, which had begun in 1990. At a Liberal caucus meeting on September 8, 1992, Chrétien declared that "if we had been the government we would not have made this deal", and that only reason to support Charlottetown was that to reject it would increase support for Quebec separatism.


title: Jean Chrétien

text: When Progressive Conservative Prime Minister Brian Mulroney began to lose ground in the polls, Chrétien was the major beneficiary. In preparation for the 1993 election, Chrétien won the right to have the final say over riding nominations and to veto any candidate that displeased him. Chrétien's use of this power caused some protests within the Liberal Party with John Nunziata publicly complaining that "The backroom guys have taken control of the party. I guess they think they can muzzle us all". Chrétien was so confident that he was going to win the 1993 election that he formed his transition team in October 1992 to prepare for the hand-over of power 13 months before it actually happened.


title: Jean Chrétien

text: Mulroney announced his retirement in February, and was succeeded by Minister of National Defence Kim Campbell in June. Campbell pulled the PCs to within a few percentage points of the Liberals by the time the writs were dropped in September.


title: Jean Chrétien

text: On September 19, Chrétien released the Liberal platform. The 112-p. document, "Creating Opportunity", quickly became known as the Red Book because of its bright red cover. Paul Martin, the man who led the team that produced the Red Book was less complimentary about the Red Book in private as during his time in office as Finance Minister, he was often reported to have said: "Don't tell me about the Red Book, I wrote the damn thing, and I know that it is a lot of crap!".


title: Jean Chrétien

text: The Liberals promised to remove the GST, which had previously been imposed by the Conservatives. Sheila Copps famously promising to resign within a year of taking office if the GST was not repealed.


title: Jean Chrétien

text: Chrétien promised to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), and reform to the unemployment insurance system. The Liberals were in favour of a free trade agreement for North America in principle, but went on to accuse Mulroney of having given away too much to the Americans and Mexicans when he signed NAFTA in 1992, and stated that the Liberal government would renegotiate NAFTA on more favourable terms to Canada within six months of taking office. Failing that, Chrétien promised that Canada would renounce NAFTA. The main emphasis was on a promise to spend $6 billion on improving infrastructure in a Keynesian move to fight the recession of the early 1990s. As regarding the debt situation, Chrétien promised to reduce Canada's deficit to 3 per cent of GDP (the same deficit to GDP ratio required to enter the European Union) within three years of taking office. Chrétien made it clear that the 3 percent deficit to GDP ratio would apply only to the federal government, whereas the Maastricht Treaty of 1991 which set out the 3 percent deficit to GDP ratio in order to enter the European Union stated that this applied to all levels of government. The Liberal government promised to achieve its goal of reducing the deficit to 3 percent of the GDP by cancelling the contract to replace the Sea King helicopters, privatizing Toronto Pearson Airport, and by eliminating unspecified "waste" in the government. After the 3 percent target had been achieved within the first three years of taking office, Chrétien promised the deficit would be eliminated at some unspecified time in the future. Martin wanted to promise to eliminate the deficit altogether, but had been overruled by Chrétien, who had wanted to present the Liberals as the "caring" party that would defend social programs, unlike the "heartless" Conservatives and the Reform Party who Chrétien claimed wanted to eliminate the deficit within two or three years by gutting social programs with no thought for any suffering that this might cause. Chrétien claimed in his campaign speeches that Reform's plans for eliminating the deficit within two or three years of taking office would cause at least a 25 percent unemployment rate, if not higher, which Chrétien claimed starkly in a series of speeches would cause a bloody "revolution". Chrétien had personally chosen the target of reducing the deficit to 3 percent of GDP as it made the Liberals seemed fiscally responsible while at the same time promised that the Liberals would not inflict too much economic pain to achieve that fiscal responsibility. One Liberal candidate Herb Dhaliwal recalled that for Chrétien at time of the 1993 election that the national deficit was not a major issue and that: "His attitude was that the deficit is ok as long as you can manage it".


title: Jean Chrétien

text: By late September 1993, the Liberals had a double-digit lead in most opinion polls. By October, the Liberals were the favourites to win at least a minority government. Even at this stage, however, Chrétien's personal approval ratings were far behind those of Campbell. Realizing this, the PC campaign team released a series of ads attacking Chrétien. The ads were viewed as a last-ditch effort to keep the Liberals from winning a majority. The second ad, released on October 14, appeared to mock Chrétien's facial paralysis, and generated a severe backlash from all sides. Even some Tory candidates called for the ad to be removed. Campbell was not directly responsible for the ad, and ordered it off the air over her staff's objections.


title: Jean Chrétien

text: On October 25, the Liberals were elected to a majority government, winning 177 seatsthe third-best performance in the Liberals' history, and their most impressive win since their record of 190 seats in 1949. The PCs were nearly wiped out, winning only two seats in the worst defeat ever suffered by a governing party at the federal level. Chrétien himself yielded Beauséjour back to Robichaud in order to run in his old riding, Saint-Maurice. However, he was unable to lead the Liberals back to their traditional dominance in Quebec. He was one of only four Liberal MPs elected from that province outside the Montreal area. With few exceptions, most of the support that had switched from the Liberals to the PCs nine years earlier flowed to the Bloc Quebecois, which became the Official Opposition.


title: Jean Chrétien

text: On November 4, 1993, Chrétien was appointed by Governor General Ray Hnatyshyn as prime minister. While Trudeau, Joe Clark, and Mulroney had been relative political outsiders prior to becoming prime minister, Chrétien had served in every Liberal cabinet since 1965. This experience gave him knowledge of the Canadian parliamentary system, and allowed Chrétien to establish a very centralized government that, although highly efficient, was also lambasted by critics such as Jeffrey Simpson and the media as being a "friendly dictatorship" and intolerant of internal dissent. Chrétien liked to present himself as the heir to Trudeau, but his governing style had little in common with the intense bouts of governmental activism that had characterised the Trudeau era. The Chrétien government had a cautious, managerial approach to governing, reacting to issues as they arose, and was otherwise inclined to inactivity.


title: Jean Chrétien

text: One of Chrétien's main concerns in office was separation of the province of Quebec, which was ruled by the sovereigntist Parti Québécois for nearly the entirety of his term. When the 1995 Quebec independence referendum began in September, Chrétien was relaxed and confident of victory as polls showed federalist forces were leading by a wide margin. On October 8, 1995, Lucien Bouchard replaced the separatist premier of Quebec, Jacques Parizeau, as the "de facto" chair of the "oui" committee and, at that point, the support for the side started to dramatically increase, aided by the committee's complacency (they had been taking victory for granted). In the weeks leading to the referendum on October 30, 1995, the federal government was seized with fear and panic as polls showing that, under the leadership of Bouchard, the "oui" side was going to win. On October 30, 1995, the federalist "non" side won by the narrowest of margins, with 50.58%.


title: Jean Chrétien

text: On November 5, 1995, six days after the referendum, Chrétien and his wife escaped injury when André Dallaire, armed with a knife, broke in the prime minister's official residence at 24 Sussex Drive. Aline Chrétien shut and locked the bedroom door until security came, while Chrétien held a stone Inuit carving in readiness. Dallaire was


title: Jean Chrétien

text: In the aftermath of the narrow victory in the referendum, Chrétien started in late 1995 a new policy of "tough love", also known as "Plan B", where the federal government sought to discredit Quebec separatism by making it clear to the people of Quebec how difficult it would be to leave Canada. Though Chrétien had promised to enshrine recognition of Quebec as a "distinct society" in the constitution in order to win the referendum, this promise was quickly forgotten in the aftermath of victory with Chrétien arguing that the very vocal opposition of Ontario Premier Mike Harris to amending the constitution to recognize Quebec as a "distinct society" made that impossible. Instead, Chrétien had Parliament pass a resolution recognizing Quebec as a "distinct society", which had no constitutional force and was only a symbolic step. Though Harris's promise to veto any sort of "distinct society" clause in the constitution made fulfilling Chrétien's commitment to put such a clause into the constitution impossible, Chrétien did not seem to champion the idea of a "distinct society" clause with any great conviction.


title: Jean Chrétien

text: In early 1996, the federal government launched an advertising program to increase the presence of Canada in Quebec, a policy that Chrétien believed would avoid a repeat of the near-defeat of 1995, and was to lead eventually to the Sponsorship scandal. As part of his "Plan B" for combatting Quebec separatism, in a speech in January 1996, Chrétien endorsed the idea of partitioning Quebec in the event of a "oui" vote in another referendum, stating all of the regions of Quebec that voted "non" would remain part of Canada, regardless of what the Quebec separatists thought. On February 15, 1996, Chrétien was confronted by a protester, Bill Clennett, during a walkabout in Hull, Quebec. Chrétien responded with a choke-hold. The press referred to it as the "Shawinigan handshake" (from the name of his home town).


title: Jean Chrétien

text: After the 1995 referendum very narrowly defeated a proposal on Quebec sovereignty, Chrétien started to champion what eventually become the "Clarity Act" as part of his "Plan B". In August 1996, the lawyer Guy Bertrand won a ruling in a Quebec court declaring that the sovereignty question was not just a political matter between the federal and Quebec governments, but also a legal matter subject to court rulings. Following that ruling, Chrétien decided that here was a means of defeating the Quebec sovereignty movement and, in September 1996, ordered the Justice Minister Allan Rock to take the question of the legality of Quebec separating to the Supreme Court. Stéphane Dion advised Chrétien that, if the federal government won the reference to the Supreme Court as expected, the government should draft a bill stating the precise rules for Quebec to leave—telling Chrétien if the people of Quebec could be shown how difficult it would be to leave, then support for separatism would fall. Along the same lines, Dion started to send much-publicised open letters to Quebec ministers questioning the assumptions behind the separatist case.


title: Jean Chrétien

text: In December 1999 the Chrétien government tabled the "Clarity Act", which passed Parliament in June 2000. The "Clarity Act", which was Chrétien's response to his narrow victory in the 1995 referendum requires that no Canadian government may acknowledge any province's declaration of independence unless a "clear majority" supports a "clear question" about sovereignty in a referendum, as defined by the Parliament of Canada, and a constitutional amendment is passed. The size of a "clear majority" is not specified in the Act. After the "Clarity Act" had passed by the House of Commons in February 2000, a poll showed that the federalist forces enjoyed a 15 percent lead in the polls on the question if Quebec should become independent, which Chrétien argued meant that the sovereignty option was now effectively off the table as Bouchard had always said he would only call another referendum if he could obtain "winning conditions", which he plainly did not possess at the moment.


title: Jean Chrétien

text: In November 1997, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit was held on the University of British Columbia (UBC) campus in Vancouver. Students on UBC's campus protested the meeting of some of these leaders because of their poor human rights practices. One of the leaders most criticized was Indonesian President Suharto. Demonstrators tore down a barrier and were pepper-sprayed by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP). Other peaceful demonstrators were subsequently pepper-sprayed as well. There was debate over whether the action was necessary. In response to Suharto's concerns about his "dignity" being called into question by protests, he had been promised by the Canadian government that no protesters would be allowed to get close and in early August 1997, the RCMP was informed by the PMO that the prime minister did not wish for any "distractions" at the up-coming conference. On August 7, 2001, the APEC report was issued by Judge Ted Hughes, which cleared Chrétien of wrongdoing, but stated that Jean Carle of the PMO had improperly pressured the RCMP to attack the protesters.


title: Jean Chrétien

text: In August 1999, the Anglo-Canadian media magnate Conrad Black was due to receive a British peerage. Two days before Black was to receive his title, Chrétien advised the Queen not to accord Black a title of nobility, citing the 1917 Nickle Resolution, where the Canadian House of Commons asked King George V not to grant any titles of nobility or knighthoods to Canadians, and thereby ensured that Black was not raised to the peerage as he was expecting to be. Black, who felt humiliated by this episode, sued Chrétien for what he alleged to be an abuse of power, leading to the legal case of Black v. Chrétien. In 2001, the court ruled in favor of Chrétien, stating it was the prime minister's prerogative to advise the Queen not to raise Canadians to the British peerage if he felt so inclined, and thereforth this was not an abuse of power as Black had claimed. Black gave up his Canadian citizenship to accept the title.


title: Jean Chrétien

text: In 1995, the Chrétien government introduced and passed the Canadian Firearms Registry, also called the long-gun registry. This would require the registration of all non-restricted firearms in Canada. This gun registry would document and record information of the firearms, their owners, and their owners' licenses.


title: Jean Chrétien

text: The government under Chrétien's premiership introduced a new and far-reaching "Youth Criminal Justice Act" in April 2003, which replaced the "Young Offenders Act" and changed the way youths were prosecuted for crimes in Canada. A flurry of major environmental legislation, including the "Canadian Environmental Protection Act", "National Marine Conservation Areas Act", "Pest Control Products Act", and the "Species at Risk Act" were enacted. The cooperation of federal, provincial, and municipal governments also enabled Vancouver to win the bid to host the 2010 Winter Olympics.


title: Jean Chrétien

text: In July 2003, Chrétien reversed his position on gay marriage, which he had previously been opposed to (in 1999 Chrétien had voted for a resolution sponsored by the Reform saying marriage was a union of a man and a woman only). After a Toronto court ruled that laws forbidding homosexual marriage violated the "Charter of Rights and Freedoms", legalizing same-sex marriage throughout Ontario, Chrétien embraced the idea of gay marriage and introduced a bill in the House of Commons that would have legalized gay marriage despite the very vocal opposition of the Roman Catholic Church with the bishop of Calgary warning in a sermon that Chrétien's "eternal salvation" was at risk.


title: Jean Chrétien

text: Chrétien cancelled the privatization of Toronto's Pearson airport. The consortium that was due to take ownership of Pearson sued for breach of contract, which led the government to settle out of court in April 1997 for $60 million in damages.