Canada’s 14th Prime Minister, the great Louis St.-Laurent, was just days away from celebrating his 90th birthday (which fell on February 1, 1972) when he sat down with a Toronto Star reporter this week in 1972. The reporter, Ron Lebel, visited the former PM at the latter’s Quebec City home. Lebel’s story appeared in the Star on this date in 1972.
“I read the newspapers every day, and I try to get as much information as possible from persons who are familiar with what goes on in Ottawa," St.-Laurent told his guest from Toronto whose story then continued: “Seated in his study behind a card table covered with books and documents, he receives a steady stream of well-wishers and watches public affairs programs on television. St-Laurent's doctor says he has a remarkably strong heart. He has recovered from three serious falls since he retired from politics 14 years ago, including a fracture of the right hip in January 1968.”
When asked about his legacy, the past PM pointed to Newfoundland’s entry into Confederation on his watch and the near-completion of the St. Lawrence Seaway as highlights. In closing his story, the reporter mentioned some of his subject’s other accomplishments while in high office.
“St. Laurent did not mention that his government brought in universal old age pensions, led Canada into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the Korean war, built the Trans-Canada Highway, named the first native-born governor -general, and abolished judicial appeals to the British House of Lords.”
St.-Laurent would live on another three years, passing into history in 1973.
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.