It is a great pleasure to send out birthday greetings from Art’s History to François-Philippe Champagne. The Minister of Finance – once described by the Globe and Mail as “Another Little Guy from Shawinigan” due to his roots in Jean Chrétien’s hometown – turns 56 today. Champagne has said that his admiration for Chrétien helped inspire him when he made the decision in 2015 to enter politics as part of Justin Trudeau’s team in 2015. He went on to hold senior positions in the Trudeau cabinet and was named now serves as Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Minister of Finance in 2025.
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.