One of the most beloved federal Tory leaders of his generation officially entered the race to succeed John Diefenbaker on this date in 1967. Robert Stanfield, the ground-breaking Premier of Nova Scotia, would go on to win the race at his party’s storied leadership conventions at Toronto’s Maple Leaf Gardens that September. He led the Progressive Conservatives through three general elections against Pierre Trudeau and his Liberals. While he was defeated each time, he earned the respect of his opponents, and more importantly, of his fellow Canadians by the time he stepped down as Leader of the Opposition after the 1974 federal election. One of the great honours of my own career was the sit down interview he granted me during my years as a journalism student at Ryerson in Toronto. Mr. Stanfield passed into history in 2023.
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.