CHRETIEN LEAVES AT EASE, EVEN IF BUSH IS DISPLEASED

OTTAWA -- The departing prime minister, Jean Chretien, defended keeping
Canadian troops out of Iraq, pushing for gay marriage and liberalizing drug
laws in an interview this week that made clear his lasting differences with
the Bush administration.

"I don't think a kid of 17 years old who has a joint should have a criminal
record," he said flatly on Monday in the broad-ranging interview in his
elegant official residence as he prepared to retire after 10 years in office.

While careful not to gloat about his decision not to send Canadian troops
to Iraq, Mr. Chretien, who is 69, was not apologetic either. "Of course he
was not happy," he said, recalling President Bush's obvious displeasure. "I
did not expect him to send me flowers."

Democracy would "take time to penetrate in the spirit of the people" in
Iraq, he said. In the meantime, he advised giving a larger role to the
United Nations, similar to that in Afghanistan, where Canada has 2,000 troops.

Mr. Chretien insisted that "relations are not bad at all" with the United
States, and he still keeps a photograph of himself and President Bush in
the foyer of his residence on the Ottawa River. But his positions left him
clearly at odds with Washington on issues defining the core values of the
two nations, ranging from Iraq and his support for the Kyoto climate
treaty, to his proposed bills to expand marriage rights and decriminalize
small amounts of marijuana.

Such stances may well mark Mr. Chretien in history as a social activist and
a leader who helped define the Canadian character as separate from that of
its powerful southern neighbor, a place that even he seemed surprised to
inhabit.

"If you told me I would do that, I would not have believed you," he said of
his decision on gay marriage, which he arrived at after two provincial
courts ruled that the federal definition of marriage as union between a man
and a woman was discriminatory. "I'm a practicing Roman Catholic."

At the same time, Mr. Chretien seemed comfortable with Canada's social
liberalism. His government has authorized the opening of a supervised
heroin injection clinic in Vancouver and the distribution of methadone and
heroin in Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver to hard-core drug users beginning
in January in an effort at curbing overdoses, crime and the spread of AIDS.

"I'm happy we are experimenting," he said. "I'd like to find out if there
is not a better way than to fill the jails with people involved with drugs.
It's not solving the problem."

In his time in office, Mr. Chretien brought a near bankrupt federal
government back to solvency, doubled the size of the national park system,
reformed campaign financing and championed increased international aid to
Africa.

When he kept the army out of Iraq, he broke historical precedent by
becoming the first Canadian leader to refuse to send troops to a war being
fought by this country's two closest traditional allies, the United States
and Britain.

The decision has been popular, even with Mr. Chretien's successor and
political nemesis, former Finance Minister Paul Martin, who takes over
leadership of the Liberal Party on Friday.

But it is Mr. Chretien's decisions on social issues that may define his
tenure, and Canada's future. Mr. Martin said he, too, would support the
marijuana reform with amendments to raise monetary penalties, and agree to
follow court rulings to legalize same-sex marriage that have made Canada
only the third country behind the Netherlands and Belgium to do so.

As the eighth of nine surviving children in a working-class Quebecois rural
family, Jean Chretien grew up with facial paralysis, a form of dyslexia and
partial deafness.

So determined was he to get his way, he once pretended to have appendicitis
just to get out of a boarding school he loathed, taking his mock pain all
the way to the operating table.

From a youth of brawling, Mr. Chretien graduated from law school and then
began a 40-year career in the House of Commons at the age of 29 barely
speaking a word of English. His English is still halting (he is not
eloquent in French either), but his folksiness has given him a reservoir of
popularity through a series of scandals and a nearly disastrous defeat in
1995 when Quebec almost voted to separate from Canada.

"A few votes the other way and he may have gone down in history as one of
the worst prime ministers," said Lawrence Martin, his biographer. Mr.
Martin concluded that while Mr. Chretien never had a commanding vision for
Canada, "he was a triumph of instincts."

Mr. Chretien long governed in the shadow of the two modern Liberal giants,
Lester Pearson and Pierre Trudeau, and only 18 months ago his government
appeared to be sputtering badly. Several senior aides were forced to resign
in scandal. Mr. Martin's plotting to take over the Liberal Party led to a
nasty break between the two, and a near open rebellion in the Liberal
parliamentary ranks.

Ever the stubborn street fighter, Mr. Chretien counterattacked with bold
moves that left his opponents dazzled, including successfully pushing for
ratification of the Kyoto climate control accord and increasing outlays on
social programs.

He says he will now go back to work as a lawyer, and just maybe learn to
cook a few more dishes than spaghetti. He will certainly play a lot of golf
as well, although he says he avoids playing with millionaires who talk
about their wives' $15,000 dresses. "That bores me," he said with a giggle.

Mr. Chretien winced when reminded that a Canadian bishop suggested he was
risking the fires of hell by deciding not to appeal an Ontario court
decision extending marriage rights to gays and lesbians.

"God and I will decide that," he said with a guffaw. Then quickly
correcting himself to appear a tad more modest, he added, "We'll discuss
and he will decide."