Australia’s Prime Minister, Joseph Lyons (in office 1932 to 1939) was in Ottawa on this date in 1935 where he held trade talks with Canada’s R.B. Bennett. After private discussions with the Canadian PM and his officials on Parliament Hill, Lyons was the guest of honour at a Government of Canada luncheon.
During his speech he said that increased trade was the only way nations like Canada and Australia would recover from the Great Depression they were still experiencing. The was particularly true when it came to any recovery on the horizon for the agricultural sector in both countries.
“I do not believe in restricting production of foodstuffs," the distinguished guest told Canadians. "I believe the world, can consume a lot more of the right-kind of food than It now consumes. When Providence has given us an abundance of food it is wrong to cut across the ends of God and deprive people of foods which are essential to health and. happiness."
Prime Minister Bennett hosted the luncheon and former Prime Minister Sir Robert Borden was also on hand to greet the visiting Australian.
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.