Canada’s 22nd Prime Minister, the Rt. Hon. Stephen J. Harper, was in Kingston on this date in 2013 where he took time out to stop by my house to plant a ceremonial tree in my garden. It was a great honour for my wife and I to briefly host the sitting PM at our home. Mr. Harper proved an excellent planter and his tree continues to thrive today. This anniversary allows me another opportunity to issue invitations to the only members (living) of the Prime Ministers Club who haven’t yet performed their duty before history, Justin Trudeau and Mark Carney, to join Mr. Harper and six other PMs in doing so.
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.