The 22nd Speaker of the House of Commons passed into history on this date in 1976. William Ross Macdonald was 84. First elected to the House in 1935 as a Liberal, he went on to enjoy a remarkable political career. Besides serving as Speaker of the House, Macdonald was also Solicitor General in the cabinet of Louis St.-Laurent and was later named a Senator. In the Red Chamber, he was Leader of the Government in the Senate under Lester B. Pearson and was Leader of the Opposition there while John Diefenbaker was PM. Finally, in 1968, he was appointed the Queen’s Representative to Ontario. He held vice-regal office until 1974.
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.