Legendary Quebec Liberal Bryce Mackasey was born in Quebec City on this date in 1921. Starting in 1962, his province’s voters would end up sending him to Ottawa seven times as a MP. Under Pierre Trudeau, this popular Irishman served in a number of portfolios and was said to be a personal favourite of Trudeau’s. Mackasey had the rare ability to make his PM laugh. Along the way he served as President of Air Canada, a member of the Quebec National Assembly and was a failed candidate for the Quebec Liberal leadership. Mackasey passed into history in 1999. He was 78.
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.