It was good while it lasted. Lifetime appointments to the Senate of Canada officially ended on this date in 1965 with Royal Assent granted to a constitutional amendment making the change. Up until then our Senators served in the Red Chamber for life! These seats, understandably, were amongst the most sought-after in Ottawa. Tory Orville Howard Phillips, who was summoned to the Senate on the advice of John Diefenbaker in 1963, served until 1999 when he retired at age 75. Phillips did not have to leave the Senate, but chose to do so on the normal retirement date.
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.