Jean Chrétien on this date in 1999 announced that President Bill Clinton would be making what turned out to be a history-making visit to Ottawa on October 8 of that year. In Canada’s capital city the U.S. President was scheduled to officially dedicate the new U.S. Embassy building. More importantly, as it turned out, he would also be addressing a conference on federalism at Montebello during his stay. Clinton’s defence of Canadian federalism there would go down in history as one of the most crucial addresses every delivered by a U.S. President on Canadian soil. You can watch Clinton’s defence of federalism and Canadian unity at this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Hqq23mlKAQ
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.