Editing Jean Chrétien (section)

====The 1993 election====
Mulroney announced his retirement in February, and was succeeded by [[Minister of National Defence (Canada)|Minister of National Defence]] [[Kim Campbell]] in June. Campbell pulled the PCs to within a few percentage points of the Liberals by the time [[Dropping the writ|the writs were dropped]] in September.{{Cn|date=March 2025}}

On September 19, Chrétien released the Liberal platform. The 112-page document, ''Creating Opportunity'', quickly became known as the [[Red Book (Liberal Party of Canada)|Red Book]] because of its bright red cover. Chrétien's rival Paul Martin, who led the team that produced the Red Book, was less complimentary about it in private; 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!"<ref name="Jeffrey-p265">Jeffrey, Brooke ''Divided Loyalties'' Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2010, p. 265.</ref> 

The Liberals promised to remove the GST, which had previously been imposed by the Tories;<ref name="Tanguay-p217-239" /> [[Sheila Copps]] famously promised to resign within a year of taking office if the GST was not repealed.<ref name="Tanguay-p217-239" /> Chrétien also promised to renegotiate the [[North American Free Trade Agreement]] (NAFTA), and reform the [[unemployment insurance]] system. The Liberals were in favour of a free trade agreement for North America in principle, but accused 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&nbsp;billion on improving infrastructure in a Keynesian move to fight the recession of the early 1990s.<ref>Martin, Lawrence ''Iron Man'', Toronto:Viking, 2003 p. 65.</ref> 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.<ref name="Grady">{{cite web |last = Grady |first = Patrick |title = The Liberal Red Book: The Economist's Perspective |publisher = Global Economics Commentaries |date= September 10, 2007| url = http://global-economics.ca/redbook.htm |access-date = May 20, 2013}}</ref> 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.<ref name="Grady" /> The Liberal government promised to achieve its goal of reducing the deficit to three percent of the GDP by cancelling the contract to [[Canadian Sea King replacement|replace the Sea King helicopters]], privatizing [[Toronto Pearson International Airport|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.<ref>Martin, Lawrence ''Iron Man'' Toronto: Viking, 2003 pp. 60–62.</ref> 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".<ref name=":2">Martin, Lawrence ''Iron Man'', Toronto: Viking, 2003 p. 62.</ref> 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.<ref name="Grady" /> 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".<ref name=":2"/>

{{quote box|width=216px|quote=But last night, the Conservative Party reached a new low; they tried to make fun of the way I look. God gave me a physical defect, and I accepted that since I'm a kid. {{sic}} It's true, that I speak on one side of my mouth. I'm not a Tory, I don't speak on both sides of my mouth.|source= —Jean Chretien responding to the "[[1993 Chrétien attack ad|face ad]]", 1993. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PikszBkfTHM Source video]}}

By late September 1993, the Liberals had a double-digit lead in most opinion polls, and by October they were 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 [[1993 Chrétien attack ad|second ad]], released on October 14, appeared to mock Chrétien's facial paralysis and generated a severe backlash from all sides.<ref>CBC News, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. October 15, 1993. Television</ref> 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.{{Cn|date=March 2025}}

On October 25, the Liberals were elected to a majority government, winning 177 seats{{spaced ndash}}the third-best performance in the Liberals' history, and their most impressive win since their record of 190 seats in [[1949 Canadian federal election|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, being 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 switched to the Bloc Québécois, which became the Official Opposition.{{Cn|date=March 2025}}