Reform Party members had an extra bounce to their collective steps on this date in 1989 and it is not hard to see why.  Winning a by-election in the Alberta riding of Beaver River, former teacher Deborah Grey become the party’s first-ever MP.  It was a remarkable breakthrough for the upstart party that had only been recently formed.  To assist her in Ottawa she turned to a young man named Stephen Harper – we’d all be hearing that name often soon! – as her Legislative Assistant. Grey would go on to serve in Parliament for 15 years until her retirement from elected politics in 2004.  In 2000 she made history when she became the first woman Leader of the Opposition in Canadian history.  She served in that post on an interim basis when Preston Manning stepped aside to contest the leadership of the Canadian Alliance. Since leaving politics she has remained active, publishing an autobiography, Never Retreat, Never Explain, Never Apologize: My Life and My Politics.  She was made an Officer of the Order of Canada in 2007, a Privy Councillor in 2013 and served on the Security Intelligence Review Committee from 2013-2015. caption id="attachment_609928" align="alignleft" width="648" Deborah Grey being honoured in the House of Commons/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.