Indigenous Canadians had a new leader on this date in 2009 with the election of Shawn Atleo as national chief of the Assembly of First Nations (AFN). A proud member of British Columbia’s Ahousaht First Nation family, he would serve in a variety of Indigeous leadership roles at the provincial and national levels. In winning the AFN leadership. Atleo defeated Perry Bellegarde after eight rounds of balloting. His leadership was confirmed with his re-election by AFN delegates meeting in convention in 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.