Today is the annual day on the Ontario and Canadian calendar where we pause – since 2013 – to honour the life and legacy of the late Lincoln Alexander, a pioneering Black Canadian in countless fields. He was Canada’s first-ever Black MP and later became the nation’s first Black cabinet minister and, in 1985, was named the Queen’s representative to Ontario. He served as Lt.-Governor of Canada’s largest province until 1991, earning the respect and affection of all Ontarians. Alexander passed into history in October 2012.
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.