Future Senator Renaude Lapointe was born on this date in 1912 at Disraeli, Quebec. She began her work as one of Canada’s first female journalists in the 1940s and wrote for both La Presse and Le Soleil. In the early 1970s she was named to the Senate on the advice of Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau. In the Red Chamber she became the first French-Canadian female Speaker of the Senate. Senator Renaude Lapointe served in the Senate until her retirement in 1997. In 1989 she was invested as a Companion of the Order of Canada. Her citation is below.
“This distinguished citizen has served her country and the status of women admirably through a wide range of activities. One of the first women to become a journalist and then editorial writer of a daily French-language newspaper, she was the first Francophone woman to become Speaker of the Senate of Canada. Her contribution to Canadian society is a source of inspiration for the youth of this country.”
Louise Marguerite Renaude Lapointe passed into history in 2002.
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.