Former Prime Minister John Diefenbaker was in Israel on this date in 1974. He was there to participate in the opening ceremonies for the John G. Diefenbaker Parkway that linked to a new park that had been created. He drove a tractor to cut the ribbon to officially connect the new parkway to the park. Diefenbaker, who first visited Israel while a new MP, was a life-long supporter of the Jewish state.
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.