The House of Commons had a new referee on this date in 1917 with the elevation of Nova Scotia’s Edgar Rhodes to the Speakership. He had been elected to the House in 1908 and was then tapped by wartime PM Sir Robert Borden to take on the job of Speaker when his predecessor was named to Borden’s cabinet.
Rhodes would preside over the House until 1921. He then left politics for a business career, but provincial affairs beckoned and he soon was elected Premier of Nova Scotia. He would hold his province’s top political job until 1930. Prime Minister R.B. Bennett appointed Rhodes to the Senate where he served until his death in 1942.
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.