The Minister's Office series concerns Jean Chrétien's activities in his capacity as: Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada; Minister of State for Social Development; Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources; Deputy Prime Minister; and Secretary of State for External Affairs for the period 1980-1984. It also concerns his activities and relations as M.P. for the riding of Saint-Maurice, where he strove to bolster his electoral support by working closely with constituents.
The series contains 759 files from the classification system, 8 files of Cabinet document transmittal notes and receipts, and 8 containers of correspondent indexes.
Files in this series from the original classification system include political, ministerial, and occasionally personal correspondence (containers 433 to 488) sent to Minister Chrétien or to various members of his staff. The following items are attached to correspondence received from various Minister's offices: working papers, reference materials, forms (i.e. employment and grant applications, etc.) and press clippings. To a lesser degree it also contains invitations, correspondence template mass mailings, news releases, written submissions, bills or legal texts, photographs, technical and architectural drawings, and geographical maps. Publications already available at LAC have been removed. Archives on audio-visual format have also been removed for appraisal purposes.
To these pieces of incoming correspondence are attached copies of the replies written by staff in the office of the responsible Minister and signed by Jean Chrétien - or, more often, on his behalf by staff members such as: Pierre Fortin (Executive Assistant), Jacques Demers (Senior Policy Advisor to the Minister), Carole Pressault (Special Assistant, and then Executive Assistant), Ted Gale (Special Assistant), Françoise Plante (Private Secretary), Monique A. Grenon (Special Assistant - Correspondence), Denise Lurette (Assistant), Debbie Schertler (Special Assistant), David Zussman (Special Assistant), Elisabeth Nadeau (Executive Assistant), Catriona MacEachern (Special Assistant), Edward S. Goldenberg, etc. The series also contains memos or staff notes serving as replies. Pieces of incoming and outgoing correspondence are sometimes initialled by Minister Chrétien (for approval, or to indicate that he saw them).
Pieces of incoming correspondence are signed by: federal and provincial Prime Ministers, Premiers and Ministers or their Executive Assistants; Senators; M.P.s; senior officers of federal institutions or agencies, corporations and companies whose activities concern departments under Minister Chrétien's authority; lobby groups; various associations; Liberal Party local organizations; city administrators; Canadian citizens; and Mauricie constituents. The majority of files from the classification system (roughly 70 percent) include correspondence from constituents on a topic relating to Minister Chrétien's portfolio. Boxes (containers) 438 to 484 contain files whose primary subject is "Constituency (Personal)" and "Constituency".
The series also contains Cabinet document transmittal notes and receipts (containers 488 and 489), and correspondent indexes (containers 490 to 499).
The series contains no working files from Minister Chrétien's Office.
