Background
Paul Martin was born in French-Canadian family in Windsor, Ontario on 1938. His father, Paul Martin senior was an active member of the Liberal party. He was a cabinet minister of four Prime Ministers, he tried to head the party twice, but he always was defeated on elections. Only his son, who came to the policy from business, managed to become a Liberian leader and the Prime Minister.
Paul Martin is married Sheila Ann Cowan, with whom he has three sons: Paul, Jamie and David.
Education
To give him the opportunity to improve his French, his parents enrolled him in a private French-language middle school, École Garneau in Ottawa.
Martin graduated from St. Michael's College at the University of Toronto with a B.A. in history and philosophy in 1961. He then attended the University of Toronto Faculty of Law, where he received an LL.B. in 1964.
Career
After studies Martin worked as the chief’s assistant of the company “Power Corporation”. In 1973 he headed the branch of company – “Canada Steamship Lines” and in 1981 he bought the company, but then under an opposition pressure he had to hand it over to his children. The opposition announced that the owner of the big sailing company can’t be Canadian Prime Minister, because his economic decisions can’t be done due to his company’s interests.
Martin’s political career started in 1988, when he was elected as the Member of Parliament. In two years he tried to head the Liberal Party, which was an opposition one, but Jean Chrétien was a total victor at that time and in 1933 the party won. He defeated progressive conservatives and they can’t still recover. In 1993 Martin was chosen as Minister of Finance. His main achievement was that he was the first who managed to balance a federal budget for thirty years.
But prime minister ambitions retained. Martin had a lot of supporters in the Liberal party, who thought that it was time for Chrétien to accede his position. There was a confidential campaign for changing the leader and in 2002 Chrétien sent Martin in resignation. Having been an ordinary deputy, Martin had a total freedom for a leader fighting in the party. His popularity was so high, that a former Minister of Finance had no match. On November 14, 2003, he was declared the winner at the Liberal leadership convention.
Paul Martin was a Prime Minister even after general elections in June, 2004, on which the Liberal party had an advantage over the Conservative Party. Anyway, after that elections Martin headed the Parliament of minority. According to analysts’ opinions a main reason of falling liberal’s popularity was a scandal connected with misapplication of funds.
This scandal began in 1990s and it concerned a distribution of means on social events. General auditor’s report said that from 250 ml. dollars, which were assigned for Quebec, 100 ml. dollars were found in intermediary firms, which were connected with liberals. Those firms redirected checks and got lots of money for this. Many events weren’t held, and those events, which were held, had a tangled financial accountability.
The Canadian Prime Minister made a declaration in which he said that he wasn’t related to spending of state budget. According to his words he was so busy with saving Canadian finance reputation, that he didn’t have time for such things. Nevertheless, the opposition was ready to send the government in resignation. The Liberal government of minority resisted owing to the fact that an independent parliamentarian Chuck Cadman supported the Cabinet of Ministers.
On May 20, 2005 152 votes were for government resignation and the same number supported it. Peter Milliken, Speaker of the House made a terminal decision for benefits of the Cabinet of Ministers.
After announcing the results of voting Martin offered to the opposition “to work together for the benefit of Canadian people”.