Joseph-Jacques-Jean Chrétien (born 1934) has had one of the remarkable careers in modern Canadian politics. He was elected ten times as a Liberal to the House of Commons, held almost every major cabinet office, served as the country's first French Canadian finance minister, and in October 1993 was elected as his nation's 20th prime minister.

Jean Chrétien was born on January 11, 1934, in Shawinigan, Quebec, the 18th of 19 children of paper mill machinist Wellie Chrétien and his wife, Marie Boisvert-Chrétien. His father was a grassroots Liberal Party organizer, and Chrétien described his family as "Liberal in the free-thinking, anti-clerical, anti-establishment tradition of the nineteenth century." As a teenager he found himself defending Liberal policy in a local poolroom during the national election of 1949. A good student, he won a scholarship to Laval University law school in Quebec City, supplementing his income...