It was a great day to be a Canadian Tory on this date in 1872. Canada’s Father of Confederation, Sir John A. Macdonald of Kingston, and his party, earned a majority mandate from Canadians after the new nation’s second-ever general election. What celebrating Tories, however, were not aware of was in their victory lay the seeds of defeat and political ruin. Their party had taken unethical donations from business interests and when they were revealed soon after the campaign, Macdonald and his colleagues were forced to resign and turn over government to the Liberals under Alexander Mackenzie.
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.