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Today in Canada’s Political History: Arthur Meighen plaque unveiled in Portage la Prairie

  • Arthur Milnes

  • August 23, 2022

Canada’s 9th Prime Minister, the Right Honourable Arthur Meighen, was remembered on this date in 1971 in the Manitoba community where he began his rise to power. Though born in Ontario, Meighen moved west to Portage la Prairie where he served as a successful lawyer before his friends and neighbours there sent him to Ottawa as their MP. A special ceremony was held to unveil the plaque in the city’s Island Municipal Park. Former Prime Minister Meighen’s widow, Isabel, then in her late 80s, unveiled the memorial. She and the future PM married in 1904 and the couple had three children. One of them, Theodore Roosevelt Meighen, was the father of former Senator Michael Meighen. The text of the Meighen plaque unveiled on August 23, 1971 reads as follows:

“Prime Minister of Canada, 1920-21, and again from June to September, 1926, Arthur Meighen was born in Ontario. As a young man he moved west to practise law. First elected to the House of Commons in 1908 to represent Portage la Prairie, he became a skilled parliamentarian and later gained an unchallenged reputation as the ablest debater of his generation in Canadian politics. He led the Liberal Conservative Party, 1920-26, and in 1941 briefly resumed the leadership. He died in Toronto.”

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.