On this date in 1983, after a long pan-national campaign in the era of delegated conventions, Canada’s federal Conservatives chose businessman Brian Mulroney as their new leader at an exciting leadership convention in Ottawa.  He would go on to lead the party to power, winning the largest majority in Canadian history 15 months later.  And, four years after that, in 1988, Canadians gave Mulroney another majority mandate making him the first Tory leader since Sir John A. himself to win back-to-back majorities. Mr. Mulroney’s remarkable legacy as Prime Minister includes his successfully negotiating the Free Trade Agreement with the Americans (later leading to the NAFTA), the Canada-US Acid Rain Treaty, his leading role in combatting South African apartheid and his government’s ushering in of the GST, amongst other needed economic reforms. It was my high honour to serve proudly as Mr. Mulroney’s Memoirs’ assistant between 2003 and 2008, so it is a particularly personal privilege to send out anniversary wishes to my former boss today. Here’s a televised look back at that historic leadership convention (CBC coverage). caption id="attachment_563143" align="aligncenter" width="520" Brian Mulroney and Mila wave from the stage on election night Sept. 4, 1984. (CP PHOTO/stf)/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.