It is a very important anniversary day in the life and career of our late Prime Minister, the Right Honourable John N. Turner. He had been elected Canada’s Liberal Party leader two weeks before to replace the retiring Pierre Trudeau. And June 30, 1984, was the day he was sworn-in as Canada’s 17^th Prime Minister. Mr. Turner had enjoyed a long and distinguished career in the cabinets of Lester Pearson and Pierre Trudeau  before become leader. Almost immediately, Mr. Turner called an election for September 4.  When the polls closed that night, the Liberals had suffered a crushing defeat and returned to the Opposition benches for the next nine years. But Mr. Turner stayed on as party leader, fought an impressive campaign against free trade in 1988, and remained an MP until 1993. Along the way he opened up his party, sought out new candidates as part of the renewal process and set the stage for the Liberals' return to power in 1993. For me, Mr. Turner was a true friend and mentor for many years, starting when I was a young journalist. caption id="attachment_568866" align="aligncenter" width="606" Former PM John Turner, center, with Art Milnes (l) and Marc Kealey (r), a longtime advisor to Mr. Turner, at a ceremony commemorating Sir Wilfrid Laurier./caption Birthday/Anniversary alerts: Sending out birthday wishes to journalist-historian David Frum, Senator Marc Gold and MP Alice Wong. And, today is the wedding anniversary of the Rt. Hon. Joe Clark and Maureen McTeer. Happy anniversary from Art’s History! 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.