But for me, it is a very important day as for the first time it is my personal and professional pleasure to welcome one of Canada’s past Prime Ministers, Stephen J. Harper to Art’s History. Mr. Harper submitted a tribute column to his Tory predecessor written exclusively for Art’s History. In 2011, while he was Prime Minister, Mr. Harper participated in the official dedication ceremony of Meighen’s Parliament Hill portrait. For me, that was a very important day as the ceremony was the first time I had the honour of meeting Prime Minister Harper. This led later to my working proudly for him as a speechwriter.

You will find the Rt. Hon. Mr. Harper’s tribute to Arthur Meighen below. Happy 150 to Mr. Meighen and a big thank-you to Mr. Harper.

By the Rt. Hon. Stephen J. Harper

It is a very real pleasure to join with Art’s History in commemorating the Rt. Hon. Arthur Meighen, on this, the 150^th anniversary of his birth.

Born in Ontario on June 16, 1874, a youthful Meighen moved to Manitoba after his university studies, soon making a name for himself in legal and local circles in Portage La Prairie. He would go on to become the first prime minister to carry within him a very real understanding of Canada’s West.

First elected to the House of Commons in 1908, Meighen’s natural skill in debate quickly brought him to the attention of more senior parliamentarians. After witnessing Meighen’s first major address in the Commons, Sir Wilfrid Laurier is said to have compared him to some of the greatest Commons speakers like Sir Richard Cartwright and Edward Blake, MPs he had witnessed in his own lengthy career in Ottawa.

Meighen was soon known for his crisp, insightful and well-argued speeches about the public policies of the day.

“If politics is intelligent discussion about facts and their meaning, as he (Meighen) thought it should be, here was a young politician to the manner born,” Western Canadian historian Professor Roger Graham wrote in his three-volume biography of the ninth prime minister.

“Meighen’s speech,” Graham added, “was streamlined like his body. No words were wasted; there was always a conclusion and it was always reached by the shortest possible route and stated with the greatest possible clarity. He was sure that two and two equaled four and that a straight line was the shortest distance between two points.”

After the Conservatives under Sir Robert Borden defeated Laurier and his Liberals in 1911, Meighen was soon brought into cabinet, where he served with distinction during the First World War.

In July 1920, he was chosen as Borden's successor. As prime minister he represented Canada at the Imperial Conference of 1921, and his work there helped spark the Washington Disarmament Conference.

Most famously he spoke at the dedication of the Cross of Sacrifice at Vimy Ridge on that same visit overseas.

“The Great War is past,” Prime Minister Meighen said, “the war that tried through and through every quality and mystery of the human mind and the might of the human spirit; the war that closed, we hope forever, the long, ghastly story of the arbitrament of men’s differences by force; the last clash and crash of earth’s millions is over now… At this time the proper occupation of the living is, first, to honour our heroic dead; next, to repair the havoc, human and material, which surrounds us; and, lastly, to learn aright and apply with courage the lessons of the war.”

It was, indeed, an address for the ages, and one still sometimes invoked on Remembrance Day.

Though he was destined later in 1921 to be defeated in a general election, Meighen returned as prime minister in the scandal surrounding Mackenzie King’s custom’s department scandal and the ensuing King-Byng constitutional crisis of 1925-26.

After being defeated once again, in September 1926, Meighen was later summoned to the Senate. He was named to Prime Minister R. B. Bennett’s cabinet as government leader in the Red Chamber. He would later serve as opposition leader in the Senate, and returned as his party’s national leader in 1941-42. Uniquely, he held the four highest offices in the Canadian Parliament: Prime Minister, Leader of the Opposition and Government and Opposition leader in the Senate.

Arthur Meighen, indeed, was the Conservative Party’s indispensable man.

During my own service as prime minister, I considered it a very high honour to participate in the dedication ceremony of Meighen’s Parliament Hill portrait in 2011. While the painting had been on display in the Centre Block for decades, Meighen had never been celebrated with an official portrait dedication ceremony like all past prime ministers are in the modern age. Joined by the Speaker of the House of Commons, the Meighen family and parliamentarians of all political stripes, we were able to correct this historical oversight.

Arthur Meighen’s voice was heard during twenty-three sessions of the House of Commons and during 13 sessions of the Senate. Words, indeed, were his greatest gift to his generation of Canadians, and remain today his most lasting legacy. His addresses were both legion and legendary.

“Loyalty to the ballot box is not necessarily loyalty to the nation,” he once said in speech that has stood the test of time. “Political captains in Canada must have courage to lead rather than servility to follow. There must be something better than an ambition to be re-elected, or democracy will fall, even in this Dominion.”

It is right we remember him on his sesquicentennial today.