It was on this date, in 1901, future Prime Minister Robert Borden became leader of Canada’s Tories, replacing the Warhorse of Cumberland, Sir Charles Tupper.  A lawyer by trade, Borden had been sent to Parliament for the first time by his fellow Nova Scotians in 1896. Far from flashy and lacking the eloquence of his opponent, the great Sir Wilfrid Laurier, Borden faced a difficult task in hoping to wrestle the Prime Minister’s Office from Laurier and his team.  But Borden, putting his head down, doggedly began to prepare his party for power.  He would lose the elections of 1904 and 1908, but the 1911 campaign would prove to be his, making him Canada’s Prime Minister a decade after his party made him leader. caption id="attachment_538649" align="alignnone" width="350" Robert Borden/caption 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.