Ottawa had a distinguished foreign visitor on this date in 1949 with the arrival of Indian Prime Minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru on Parliament Hill. He was welcomed to the House chamber for his address by Prime Minister Louis St.-Laurent.
“We know of the signal courage, devotion and loyalty with which Mr. Nehru has served and continues to serve the people of India, and of the statesmanship and nobility of thought which he has brought to bear upon the great questions of human affairs in the councils not only of India but of the Commonwealth and the United Nations,” St.-Laurent said.
You can read Prime Minister Nehru’s entire speech to the Canadian Parliament at this link.
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.