It was a very big day in the history of Canadian diplomacy on August 2, 1973 as Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, as Chair of the second Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, brought his fellow leaders to order as the conference began.Over the next eight days Commonwealth leaders agreed upon a statement declaring the diverse group of nation’s firm support for the banning of nuclear tests in the atmosphere, under water or in space. Leaders also started their CHOGM tradition of meeting as a group in a sort of retreat with only one staff member per leader allowed, thereby providing a more open discussion privately amongst participants.[caption id="attachment_629825" align="alignnone" width="680"]
Canada hosts Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting for first time at Mont-Tremblant[/caption]In some ways Canada’s hosting the international conference with Trudeau in the chairman’s role was ironic as only two-years previously, the 15th PM had to convinced by his staff to attend the CHOGM of 1971.In political retirement, Trudeau, a one-time sceptic of the Commonwealth’s value, later even marveled at the role Her Majesty the Queen would play at the summits that followed the one in Ottawa.“As I got to meet the Queen,” he said in a confidential interview for use for his Memoirs, “which we did at each Commonwealth meeting, she spent a short time, fifteen-twenty minutes, with each of us. But when we’d come out of that meeting, each of us was amazed that she seemed to know a great deal about our respective countries and therefore, she certainly had the information and the ability to get it out of us by the kind of questions she asked. She obviously knew what she was, and the series would last, I suppose a day-and-a-half. So, it isn’t as though she could spend a lot of time getting briefed on who’s next coming in. She knew it well. And as I got to meet her on different occasions through my years in office, either through her visits here or my passages in Great Britain, or at other Commonwealth meetings, I had a feeling that she was pretty wise.”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.
Canada hosts Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting for first time at Mont-Tremblant[/caption]In some ways Canada’s hosting the international conference with Trudeau in the chairman’s role was ironic as only two-years previously, the 15th PM had to convinced by his staff to attend the CHOGM of 1971.In political retirement, Trudeau, a one-time sceptic of the Commonwealth’s value, later even marveled at the role Her Majesty the Queen would play at the summits that followed the one in Ottawa.“As I got to meet the Queen,” he said in a confidential interview for use for his Memoirs, “which we did at each Commonwealth meeting, she spent a short time, fifteen-twenty minutes, with each of us. But when we’d come out of that meeting, each of us was amazed that she seemed to know a great deal about our respective countries and therefore, she certainly had the information and the ability to get it out of us by the kind of questions she asked. She obviously knew what she was, and the series would last, I suppose a day-and-a-half. So, it isn’t as though she could spend a lot of time getting briefed on who’s next coming in. She knew it well. And as I got to meet her on different occasions through my years in office, either through her visits here or my passages in Great Britain, or at other Commonwealth meetings, I had a feeling that she was pretty wise.”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.