One of the most interesting and dedicated political leaders to ever serve as federal Leader of the Opposition announced his resignation from his high office on this date in 1948. John Bracken, who had served more than 20 years as Premier of Manitoba before entering federal politics, had been elected by Canada’s national Tories six-years previously. Mr. Bracken led his party to a second-place finish in Canada’s 1945 election. He passed into history at the age of 85 in 1969.
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.