Feelings of excitement and national confidence were in the air on this date in 1867 as Canada’s first post-Confederation Parliament assembled. The first order of business was picking a Speaker and James Cockburn was soon the man of the hour. The significance of this day in 1867 also meant that Sir John A. Macdonald delivered his first remarks in the Dominion of Canada’s new House of Commons.
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.