Your recollection is correct.   

The 1995 referendum came within 1% of being won by the separatists.  This was partly because PM Chretien sleepwalked and golfed through the referendum campaign.  As well, as PET's wing man in the 1981/82 constitutional negotiations considered a betrayal by many Quebecers and not signed by Quebec and later in opposing Meech Lake with his former boss he gave new life to the separatist movement.   

Chretien didn't resolve the unity crisis other than by swiping the more muscular Clarity Act/referendum policy drafted by young Harper for the Reform platform and separatism was not marginalized until Harper's time in office.  But Chretien certainly had a key hand in causing the unity crisis.

Similarly, he was finance minister during much of Trudeau's time and more associated with causing the debt crisis than resolving it.   Mulroney's trade and tax policies and Martin's tough spending cuts on the provinces and the poor did.

You can still spin them,  Peter!