Paul Martin Jr., took office on this date in 2003, becoming the nation’s 21st Prime Minister. A touching part of the Rideau Hall ceremony was the fact that as he took the oath, Mr. Martin held in his hands the Canadian flag that had flown above the Peace Tower at the time of his father and namesake’s death in 1992. The special flag had been presented to the Martin family by then Prime Minister Brian Mulroney
Martin had first been elected to the House in the 1988 free trade election and went on to serve with great skill and distinction as Minister of Finance in Jean Chrétien’s cabinet. In doing so, Martin and Chrétien, despite their personal rivalries, formed one of the greatest-ever partnerships between a PM and his finance minister in Canadian history.
Martin would lead the nation until 2006. In political retirement, he has devoted his energies to improving educational opportunities for Indigenous peoples, particularly youth, and has been tireless while doing so.
For me, he has long been a supporter of my work in the field of political history and my wife and I were honoured when the former PM visited our Kingston home to perform a tree-planting in 2010. A few years later, Mr. Martin dropped by once again, spending an hour with me to lift my spirits when I was facing health difficulties.
A classy man, it is a great personal and professional pleasure to mark this special anniversary on Art’s History today.
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.