It was on March 26, 1979, the 39th anniversary of Mr. Diefenbaker’s first election to Parliament in the 1940 general election, that he delivered his final address in the House of Commons. He called upon the House to support a motion of his calling for then U.S. President Jimmy Carter to receive the Nobel Peace Prize to honour the President’s incredible role in forging the Camp David Accords between Israel and Egypt. MPs unanimously agreed with Dief and his motion passed. Diefenbaker would pass into history in August of the same year.
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.