The future national leader of the NDP was born on this date in 1950. Jack Layton, who would go on to lead his party to their best-ever showing (103 seats in the 2011 election), came into this world in Montreal. His father was future Tory MP Bob Layton. Jack moved through academia, earning his doctorate in political science from York in 1983. He then became a professor at Ryerson, and soon after was elected to Toronto City Council.
Layton entered federal politics in 2003 with his election as national NDP leader. He would lead his party through four elections and in 2011 led the NDP to Official Opposition status, a remarkable achievement. Sadly, Layton passed into history from cancer within months of the 2011 campaign.
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.