OTTAWA - The gallows humour and self mockery are still there, along with the sharp elbows and finely tuned partisan antennae.
Jean Chretien, the three-time majority Liberal prime minister who some in his own party couldn't wait to be rid of, returned Tuesday to Parliament Hill -- this time to stay.
His stern portrait, cooly staring back at viewers from a brilliant golden backdrop, joins 19 other prime ministerial paintings on the limestone walls of the Centre Block.
Chretien, 76, returned to an overflow crowd of adoring Liberals, retired bureaucrats, curious former adversaries and a remarkably gracious and kind Stephen Harper.
He didn't disappoint.
Chretien lavished praise on Canada and the health of its democracy, stoutly defended its political class, and slyly burnished his international credentials while poking fun at his own reputation for pork barrel politics.
"Coming under the Peace Tower today again, I could not but to remember all I've learned here. But it's all about Canada . . . ," he said near the end of a 15-minute speech that meandered but never stalled.
"There's probably not one riding that I've not been there to raise money for the Liberal party," he added to a smattering of laughs that soon became a roar.
"And they were not all giving money to be named judge or to get a contract!"
Having pricked his own bubble, Chretien then returned to his theme for the day.
"Most of them were coming to eat with me some rubber chicken because they believe in democracy. And we have to keep that in mind."
Chretien, who spent a 40-year career as an MP and more than 10 as prime minister, had earlier noted the public service of the four federal party leaders in attendance for his portrait ceremony.
Prime Minister Harper began his career as a young aide on Parliament Hill and has been politically active ever since, he noted. Even Gilles Duceppe of the Bloc Quebecois got a nod.
"I'm a career politician and I'm very proud," Chretien said to applause.
"This is a tough life, but it is a very noble life."
Harper, whose Conservatives seldom pass a day in the Commons without alluding to the decade-old sponsorship scandal under Chretien's watch, was merrily magnanimous in room full of Liberals.
"According to several of my predecessors as leader of the Conservatives, the hanging of Jean Chretien is long overdue," Harper quipped to laughter.
"By hanging his portrait, we political opponents and allies alike honour his long and successful service to Canada and do so here within the walls of the building where he laboured for so many years and to such enduring effect."
Chretien's resume, said the prime minister, "is woven through four decades of Canadian history."
Harper also noted Chretien's "eloquence without pretension" and then brought the room down by reciting Chretien's circular "proof is the proof" rationale for staying clear of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.
"It's very hard to argue with that," said Harper. "On many occasions, we leaders of the opposition simply gave up trying."
It was a day steeped in Liberal nostalgia, beginning with the chant of "Four more years!" that greeted Chretien's entry into the steaming committee room.
He taunted his well-wishers by noting William Gladstone won election as Britain's prime minister at age 83.
Chretien's portrait will make an interesting addition to the gallery of worthies just off the Hall of Honour leading to the Commons foyer.
He stands with his right hand in pocket, his left holding reading glasses at his hip, his eyes deeply furrowed and his jaw set.
"I recognize that expression," former cabinet minister John Manley told a fellow reviewer. "That's the one he gave you when you walked into cabinet five minutes late."
Artist Christan Nicholson said the painting is just one of five of Chretien he painted, and his original version is of a more casual "little guy from Shawinigan."
"In this one he looks like a prime minister," said the portrait artist.
Chretien wanted a plain background and his daughter France requested Chinese yellow as a backdrop -- which Nicholson loves.
"I know where it's going to be hanging in that very dark hallway, so it will glow in the dark," he said.
He also recalled telling Chretien, "you're haunting me. I get up in the middle of the night and you glow in the dark."
Hauntings, hangings, humour. Jean Chretien is back where he belongs.
