Shawinigan Handshake! I love Chretien

[nieuwy-89]

Chretien was the first major party leader in Canada to gain and hold power primarily by exploiting the country's diversity. He was a divisive and insulting man who had no problem pitting east against west, english against french, and rich against poor for his own personal gain.

Don't forget we narrowly lost Quebec in 1994 under his watch, predominantly because he antagonized so many "soft federalists" in his own province. It is my strong belief that the only thing that held the country together during the Chretien era was the incompetency of the separatists, and the few strong federalist premiers that the country had at the time (Charest, Klein, McKenna).

Not to mention all of the mistakes we taxpayers paid for and will continue to pay for - cancelling/deferring infrastructure spending, cutting health care transfers to the provinces, the gun registry. One of the most shocking things about Chretien's reign was that every federal department saw cuts or modest growth - no problem there - but Indian and Northern Affairs and the Canadian Revenue Agency ballooned! Great value for the taxpayer there, Jean!

He was flat out terrible for this country.

[Shazam]

Originally Posted by nieuwy-89

Chretien was the first major party leader in Canada to gain and hold power primarily by exploiting the country's diversity. He was a divisive and insulting man who had no problem pitting east against west, english against french, and rich against poor for his own personal gain.

Don't forget we narrowly lost Quebec in 1994 under his watch, predominantly because he antagonized so many "soft federalists" in his own province. It is my strong belief that the only thing that held the country together during the Chretien era was the incompetency of the separatists, and the few strong federalist premiers that the country had at the time (Charest, Klein, McKenna).

Not to mention all of the mistakes we taxpayers paid for and will continue to pay for - cancelling/deferring infrastructure spending, cutting health care transfers to the provinces, the gun registry. One of the most shocking things about Chretien's reign was that every federal department saw cuts or modest growth - no problem there - but Indian and Northern Affairs and the Canadian Revenue Agency ballooned! Great value for the taxpayer there, Jean!

He was flat out terrible for this country.

Libs have never cared about the west, or poor people.

God I could imagine the amoebas that I'd have to deal with at the CRA if they didn't get bigger.

[RedHot25]

Originally Posted by nieuwy-89

the few strong federalist premiers that the country had at the time (Charest, Klein, McKenna).

Ralph Klein?

[peter12]

Originally Posted by RedHot25

Ralph Klein?

Federalism is best served by strong provinces, something that the Canadian federal government, since Pearson/Trudeau, has attempted to dissolve in favour of a unilaterally powerful federal government.

Klein was a strong premier, standing up for Albertan interests and was thus, a strong federalist.

[Flamesguy_SJ]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

A lousy corrupt vindictive little man who was a great Prime Minister if you were in an Ontario or Quebec riding.

I did like him choking out that idiot though.

Fixed for accuracy.

I don't really understand why a large portion of the people on this board, who I assume to be from Calgary/Alberta/West of Ontario, think that every Prime Minister has a hate-on for Alberta/the West, when really, unless you live in Ontario or sometimes Quebec, all the other provinces are treated the same way: as an afterthought.

In a perfect Canada, each region/province would have equal footing and input and maybe influence in Ottawa, but as it stands, it makes sense to me that the place(s) with the highest population and therefore the highest number of seats gets most of the attention.

I'll freely admit to honestly not knowing that much about Alberta/the West and politics, and am definitely willing to learn more and have more explained to me, but as an outside observer it really seems that there is a lot of complaining about something that most other Canadians are experiencing/have experienced too.

Back on-topic, I always kinda liked Chretien, but then I was 5 when he first took office, and 17 when he stopped being PM, so I didn't exactly pay a lot of attention to his politics.