One of the greatest orators in Canadian political history, Arthur Meighen, took his debating skills to a new venue on this date in 1932. He answered his party’s call and accepted appointment to the Red Chamber at the request of Prime Minister R.B. Bennett, entering his cabinet at the same time. One immediate effect of Meighen’s becoming Senator was the fact the public galleries and press gallery started to be filled by reporters and citizens turning out to witness his eloquence first hand. Meighen, of course, served as Prime Minister in 1920-21, and again briefly in 1926. Meighen was defeated by the ever-wily Mackenzie King both times.
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.