It was on this date in 1896, only days away from the election that would see him defeated, that Sir Charles Tupper made his one and only appointment to the Senate. He had pioneering French-Canadian business person Louis-Joseph Forget summoned to the Red Chamber. When you consider that Tupper only served as PM for 66 days, Forget was indeed a lucky man with his appointment, particular as Senate seats lasted for life back then. While a Conservative, Senator Forget enjoyed friendships with leading members of other parties, including Sir Wilfrid Laurier. Forget served as the chair of the Montreal Stock Exchange, was the first French Canadian to serve on the Board of the Canadian Pacific Railway and was so financially successful the Government of Quebec took loans from him! When Forget passed into history in 1911, he left an estate worth approximately $4 million dollars.
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.