Word: chretien
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Only two days had passed since the Liberal Party's landslide victory, but Jean Chretien was raring to go into action. The man who will be Canada's 20th Prime Minister does not take office until this week, but at his first postelection press conference he plunged into a small torrent of pronouncements. "It's time to pull the country together, time to get to work," Chretien declared. He clearly meant it. So eager was he to get on with his busy schedule that he fled the planned 45-minute news conference after just 22 minutes -- only to find that...
...Chretien could have used the spare time to savor the Liberals' stunning comeback to power after nine years in opposition. He had been derided by the ruling Progressive Conservatives as "yesterday's man" -- until voters handed the Tories the worst defeat in the history of any Canadian party. In Oct. 25 balloting, they reduced the party's House of Commons strength from 155 seats to a shockingly rock-bottom 2 and simultaneously gave Chretien a comfortable 177-seat majority. Prime Minister Kim Campbell lost her seat and soon, no doubt, will lose the leadership post she held for only three...
Pitted against these bipolar forces is one of the country's most experienced politicians -- the holder of nine Cabinet posts in previous Liberal governments -- and a vocal federalist. Chretien, 59, takes office with a clear, if daunting, mandate: to turn around the limp economy while preserving an expensive social-service network that 28.5 million Canadians -- and Chretien himself -- see as an inalienable right...
...Bakal said he thought Chretien was "tooharsh" on NAFTA and said the prime minister shouldnot begin his term in office by alienating otherworld powers, namely President Clinton...
Vancouver resident Carl Bergeron, a physicsgraduate student and president of the graduatestudents' Canadian club, said he thinks theelection of Chretien, who is from Quebec, willkeep the Quebequois secessionism issue in thespotlight...