A man with a remarkable political resume was appointed federal Minister of Finance on this date in 1932. Edgar Nelson Rhodes, who had served as Speaker of the House of Commons, Premier of Nova Scotia, head of a collection of leading Canadian businesses, and who would go onto to become a Senator in his final years in politics, was named to his post by Prime Minister R.B. Bennett. The latter, of course, had held the portfolio himself for almost two years. Unfortunately for Rhodes, he became Finance Minister in the midst of the Great Depression.
While largely forgotten today, it is worth noting that he was presiding over the Commons as Deputy Speaker when the great Centre Block fire broke out during the First World War. A new Speaker’s chair was then constructed for him to use and it is now back in place in the temporary House of Commons in West Block.
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.