December 10, 1917. It was on this date 103 years ago that our fifth Prime Minister, Sir Mackenzie Bowell, was summoned to the great Red Chamber in the sky.
While Bowell’s term as PM was brief, and didn’t end very well -- his cabinet revolted! – I admit a certain soft spot for him.
Bowell assumed ownership of a weekly newspaper – the Belleville Intelligencer -- in the 1850s. In 1859, he was a founding member of the Canadian Press Association, and later served as its president in 1865–66. 1867, the year of Canada’s birth, was a milestone year for Mackenzie Bowell: he launched a daily edition of the Intelligencer -- the paper still publishes on a daily basis – and he was elected to the House of Commons to represent Hastings North, a riding he held for the next 25 years.
For whatever reason – welcome to Canada, I guess – there is still not a full-length academic biography of Bowell on the library shelves. This omission is shameful considering that Bowell who, as PM, led us from the Senate, and served as First Minister for almost two years during our young Dominion’s earliest days.
And, when his service as MP and Senator is combined, he was a Canadian Parliamentarian for just over 50 years.
If that is not worth a book, I don’t know what is.
Here’s to you Mackenzie Bowell. You are not forgotten in my home.
December 10, 1990. A cool anniversary today involving the “Iron Man” of Canadian politics, the Rt. Hon. Jean Chrétien. So, it was exactly 30 years ago today that Mr. Chrétien returned to the House of Commons via a by-election in the New Brunswick riding of Beauséjour.
He had been elected leader of the Liberal Party six months before at the Party’s Calgary convention. This period, however, was a difficult one. Mr. Chrétien suffered health problems and many Liberals were whispering that he was “Yesterday’s Man.”
As a young reporter back then for the Pembroke Observer I secured a sit-down interview during Mr. Chrétien’s period as Leader of the Opposition. Naturally, I asked him about those questioning his leadership. He said those saying these things were simply “Nervous Nellies” and that he’d soon be Prime Minister.
And he indeed achieved that goal.
We can discuss those leadership tensions in the Liberal Party back then another day. For now, let’s recall that this return to the Commons by the future Prime Minister was part of a remarkable Parliamentary story. By the time Mr. Chrétien left the Commons for good, he’d served a commanding 35 years, ten months and 23 days as a MP.
Arthur Milnes is an accomplished public historian and award-winning journalist. He was research assistant on The Rt. Hon. Brian Mulroney’s best-selling Memoirs and also proudly served as a speechwriter to then-Prime Minister Stephen Harper and as a Fellow of the Queen’s Centre for the Study of Democracy under the leadership of Tom Axworthy. A resident of Kingston, Ontario, Milnes serves as the in-house historian at the 175 year-old Frontenac Club Hotel.
Bowell assumed ownership of a weekly newspaper – the Belleville Intelligencer -- in the 1850s. In 1859, he was a founding member of the Canadian Press Association, and later served as its president in 1865–66. 1867, the year of Canada’s birth, was a milestone year for Mackenzie Bowell: he launched a daily edition of the Intelligencer -- the paper still publishes on a daily basis – and he was elected to the House of Commons to represent Hastings North, a riding he held for the next 25 years.
For whatever reason – welcome to Canada, I guess – there is still not a full-length academic biography of Bowell on the library shelves. This omission is shameful considering that Bowell who, as PM, led us from the Senate, and served as First Minister for almost two years during our young Dominion’s earliest days.
And, when his service as MP and Senator is combined, he was a Canadian Parliamentarian for just over 50 years.
If that is not worth a book, I don’t know what is.
Here’s to you Mackenzie Bowell. You are not forgotten in my home.
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Arthur Milnes is an accomplished public historian and award-winning journalist. He was research assistant on The Rt. Hon. Brian Mulroney’s best-selling Memoirs and also served as a speechwriter to then-Prime Minister Stephen Harper and as a Fellow of the Queen’s Centre for the Study of Democracy under the leadership of Tom Axworthy. A resident of Kingston, Ontario, Milnes serves as the in-house historian at the 175 year-old Frontenac Club Hotel.