Today is one of the most significant political history anniversaries on the Canadian calendar: Keeping faith with the nearly 60,000 Canadians who lost their lives -- with countless thousands more maimed and/or left with crushing life-long mental health issues -- in the First World War, it was on this day in 1919 that Sir Robert Borden signed the Treaty of Versailles.
Prime Minister Borden insisted that Canada sign the Treaty as a separate nation, meaning the British would not leave us out by signing on our behalf. This was an impressive act of statesmanship on our PM's part, and a historic step-forward on the long road towards Canadian autonomy. Within months Sir Robert, left exhausted and ill, resigned the Premiership but recovered and lived another 17 years. He remains one of Canada's most underrated Prime Ministers.
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Sir Robert Borden/caption
Birthday alerts: Sending out birthday wishes to Leona Aglukkaq, the first Inuit woman to serve in a federal cabinet and to Minister of International Development Karina Gould, the Liberal MP representing Burlington, Ontario.
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.
Sir Robert Borden/caption
Birthday alerts: Sending out birthday wishes to Leona Aglukkaq, the first Inuit woman to serve in a federal cabinet and to Minister of International Development Karina Gould, the Liberal MP representing Burlington, Ontario.
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.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.