Canada’s 27th Governor General, the Right Honourable Michaëlle Jean is celebrating her 69th birthday today. Born in Haiti in 1957, she came to Canada with her family as a child refugee in 1968. Madam Jean would become a leading Quebec journalist before she was tapped by Prime Minister Paul Martin in 2005 to become the Queen’s Representative to Canada. She held her vice-regal post until 2010. In 2014 she was elected head of la Francophone and held the post for one four-year term.
Happy birthday Michaëlle Jean!
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.