Pierre Trudeau officially returned to the Prime Minister’s Office on this date in 1980, having defeated Joe Clark and his Tory government only weeks before. He had promised Canadians that he would leave office before the next election so he returned to the Langevin Block with a personal agenda for change at the ready. Over the next four-years these plans would be put into action and the country would see the patriation of the Constitution with the addition of the Charter of Rights; the National Energy Program, his Peace Initiative on the world stage and more. Perhaps most importantly, his return to office meant that Trudeau would lead the “No” forces in the Quebec Referendum campaign that was already underway.
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.