The spouses of Canada’s Prime Ministers have the most difficult job in Canadian politics. It most often falls to them to them to ensure as normal a childhood as possible for their while the Prime Minister fulfills his or her duty to the nation. And while their partners are under attack in numerous forums, they have to support him or her while, for the most part, remaining above politics in public. And to do all this and more, they are provided very little help by the Government of Canada.
So that is a long way of saying what a great personal and professional pleasure it is to send out birthday greetings today to a woman of grace and class it was my privilege to get to know while I served for five years as her former PM husband’s memoirs’ assistant in the mid-2000s. Her name, of course, is Mila Mulroney. And today, two-years after the death of Mr. Mulroney, she continues her public duties to the nation (like all of the spouses of our PMs). Most recently she was appointed Chancellor of the university that meant so much to the 18th Prime Minister, ST FX.
Happy birthday from Art’s History Mrs. Mulroney.
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.