Editing Jean Chrétien (section)

=== Chrétien and Martin: Liberal Party infighting ===

Relations between Chrétien and Martin were frequently strained, and Martin was reportedly angling to replace Chrétien as early as 1997. Martin had long hoped that Chrétien would just retire at the end of his second term, thereby allowing him to win the Liberal leadership, and was greatly disappointed in January 2000 when Chrétien's communications director Françoise Ducros had fired "a shot across the bow" by confirming what had been strongly hinted at since the summer of 1999 in an announcement to the caucus that Chrétien would seek a third term.<ref>Martin, Lawrence ''Iron Man'', Toronto: Viking, 2003 p. 243.</ref><ref>Jeffrey, Brooke ''Divided Loyalties'' Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2010, pp. 337–338.</ref>

Chrétien was due to face a leadership review in February 2002, but the Liberal national executive, which was controlled by partisans of Paul Martin, agreed to Chrétien's request in early January 2001 that the leadership review be pushed back to February 2003.<ref name="Martin-p326">Martin, Lawrence ''Iron Man'', Toronto: Viking 2003, p. 326.</ref> In agreeing to this request, Martin believed that this was the ''quid pro quo'' for allowing Chrétien a decent interval to retire with dignity sometime in 2002, an interpretation that Chrétien did not hold.<ref name="Martin-p326"/>

==== Rebellion and resignation ====

By early 2002, the long-simmering feud with Martin came to a head. A particular concern that had badly strained relations between the prime minister and the finance minister by early 2002 was Martin's control of the Liberal Party apparatus, especially his control over the issuing of membership forms, which he reserved largely for his own supporters.<ref name=":6">Jeffrey, Brooke ''Divided Loyalties: The Liberal Party of Canada, 1984–2008'', Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2010 p. 367.</ref> In January 2002, Brian Tobin complained to Chrétien that the Liberal Party machinery had been "captured" by Martin's followers to the extent that it was now virtually impossible for anyone else to sign up their own followers.<ref name=":6"/> This posed a major problem for Chrétien as the Liberals were due to hold a leadership review in February 2003. However, it was still quite possible that Chrétien would win the review by a slim margin.<ref>Jeffrey, Brooke ''Divided Loyalties: The Liberal Party of Canada, 1984–2008'', Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2010 p. 363.</ref>

In January 2002, an incident occurred which was to greatly damage Chrétien's relations with the Liberal caucus. After Chrétien reorganized the Cabinet in late January 2002, Liberal MP [[Carolyn Bennett]] criticised Chrétien at a caucus meeting for not appointing more women to the Cabinet.<ref>Martin, Lawrence ''Iron Man'', Toronto: Viking, 2003 p. 355.</ref> Chrétien exploded with rage at Bennett's criticism, saying that as a mere backbencher she did not have the right to criticise the prime minister in front of the caucus, and attacked her with such fury that Bennett collapsed in tears.<ref name="Martin, Lawrence p. 356">Martin, Lawrence ''Iron Man'', Toronto: Viking, 2003 p. 356.</ref> In February 2002, reflecting a growing number of Liberal MPs' displeasure with Chrétien, the Liberal caucus elected the outspoken pro-Martin MP [[Stan Keyes]] (who had already openly mused in 2001 about how it was time for Chrétien to go) as their chairman, who defeated pro-Chrétien MP [[Steve Mahoney]].<ref name="Martin, Lawrence p. 358">Martin, Lawrence ''Iron Man'', Toronto: Viking, 2003 p. 358.</ref> Chrétien had expected Mahoney to win, and was reported to be shocked when he learned of Keyes's victory, which now gave Martin more control of the caucus.<ref name="Martin, Lawrence p. 358"/>
 
In late May 2002, Chrétien tried to curtail Martin's campaign for the leadership of the party by delivering a lecture to Cabinet to stop raising money for leadership bids within the Liberal Party. At what was described as a "stormy" Cabinet meeting on May 30, 2002, Chrétien stated that he intended to serve out his entire term, and ordered the end of all leadership fundraising.<ref>Jeffrey, Brooke ''Divided Loyalties: The Liberal Party of Canada, 1984–2008'', Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2010 p. 372.</ref> Martin left his cabinet on June 2, 2002. Martin claimed that Chrétien dismissed him from Cabinet, while Chrétien said that Martin had resigned.<ref name=thestar>{{cite news|last=Delacourt|first=Susan|title=Chrétien memoirs take aim at Martin|url=https://www.thestar.com/News/Canada/article/266641|access-date=March 2, 2012|newspaper=Toronto Star|date=October 14, 2007|archive-date=January 7, 2009|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090107135914/http://www.thestar.com/News/Canada/article/266641|url-status=dead}}</ref> In his memoirs, Chrétien wrote that he regretted not having fired Martin a few years earlier.<ref name=thestar/>

Martin's departure generated a severe backlash from Martin's supporters, who controlled much of the party machinery, and all signs indicated that they were prepared to oust Chrétien at a leadership review in February 2003. To win the leadership review, Chrétien formed a team in early June 2002 comprising his close associates John Rae, [[David Collenette]], Jean Carle, and David Smith who were ordered to sign up as many pro-Chrétien ("Chrétienist") Liberals as possible for the leadership review.<ref>Martin, Lawrence ''Iron Man'', Toronto: Viking, 2003 p. 381.</ref> The open split, which was covered extensively on national media, increasingly painted Chrétien as a [[lame duck (politics)|lame duck]]. During the summer of 2002, a number of backbencher Liberal MPs associated with Martin started to openly criticise Chrétien's leadership, calling on him to resign now or suffer the humiliation of losing the leadership review.<ref name="Jeffrey pp. 375–376">Jeffrey, Brooke ''Divided Loyalties: The Liberal Party of Canada, 1984–2008'', Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2010 pp. 375–376.</ref> Chrétien asked Jim Karygiannis, who had been so effective in signing up supporters for him in 1990 to repeat that performance, only to be told by Karygiannis that Chrétien had never rewarded him by appointing him to the Cabinet as he asked for many times over the years, had not even returned his phone calls to set up a meeting to discuss his possible appointment to the Cabinet and that he was now a Martin man.<ref name="Martin, Lawrence p. 383">Martin, Lawrence ''Iron Man'', Toronto: Viking 2003 p. 383.</ref> Karygiannis then called a press conference on July 13, 2002, where he called for Chrétien to retire "with dignity", rather than risk losing a potentially divisive leadership review and avoid having his career end that way.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.karygiannismp.com/dignity.html|title=Avoid convention bloodbath former loyalist tells PM|date=July 13, 2002|last=Harper|first=Tim|newspaper=Toronto Star|access-date=July 24, 2006|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070929005402/http://www.karygiannismp.com/dignity.html|archive-date=September 29, 2007}}</ref>

After less than half the caucus committed to support him in August 2002 by signing a letter indicating their support for the prime minister in the up-coming leadership review, Chrétien announced that he would not lead the party into the next election, and set his resignation date for February 2004. Martin was not happy with the 2004 departure date, preferring that Chrétien retire at the end of 2002, but considered it better if Chrétien were to retire than having to defeat him at the 2003 leadership review, which would have been more divisive and would have established the ominous precedent of a prime minister being ousted by his own party for no other reason other that someone else wanted the job.<ref>Martin, Lawrence ''Iron Man'', Toronto: Viking, 2003 p. 391.</ref> Due to mounting pressure from the Martin camp, Chrétien no longer saw his February 2004 resignation date as tenable. His final sitting in the House of Commons took place on November 6, 2003. He made an emotional farewell to the party on November 13 at the [[2003 Liberal Party of Canada leadership election|2003 Liberal leadership convention]]. The following day, Martin was elected his successor. On December 12, 2003, Chrétien formally resigned as prime minister, handing power over to Martin. Chrétien joined the law firm, [[Heenan Blaikie]] on January 5, 2004, as counsel. The firm announced he would work out of its Ottawa offices four days per week and make a weekly visit to the Montreal office. In early 2004, there occurred much [[2004 Liberal Party of Canada infighting|in-fighting]] within the Liberal Party with several Liberal MPs associated with Chrétien such as Sheila Copps and [[Charles Caccia]] losing their nomination battles against Martin loyalists.{{Cn|date=March 2025}}