Topics

Today in Canada's Political History: July 26, 1960, The history-making Louis Joseph Robichaud takes office as Premier in New Brunswick!

  • Arthur Milnes

  • National Newswatch

  • July 26, 2026

Arthur Milnes, creator of Art's History on National Newswatch, is an accomplished public historian, award-winning journalist, and in-house historian at the Frontenac Club Hotel who brings Canada's political history to life through engaging stories, historical insights, and personal anecdotes drawn from his encounters with many of the country's leading figures.

For only the second time in New Brunswick’s proud history, an Acadian took office as Premier on this date in 1960. Louis Joseph Robichaud would go on to serve in his province’s highest political office for a decade. Along the way he ushered in a suite of historic reforms, and most famously, his work led to NB becoming the nation’s only officially bilingual province.

Premier Robichaud was defeated by Richard Hatfield, a true Progressive Conservative, in 1970 and was then summoned to the Red Chamber in Ottawa on the advice of Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau. Mr. Robichaud passed into history in 2005 at age 79.



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.