For Canadian prime ministerial and national leader speechwriters, our patron saint is none other than Leonard Brockington. Then a youthful public servant, Brockington was pressed into service to assist Prime Minister Mackenzie King with many of the latter’s addresses. He is believed to be the very first full-time political speechwriter in Canadian political history (though some might have other candidates). Like any good prime ministerial speechwriter today, Mr. Brockington was modest and rarely discussed his speechwriting work for his Prime Minister.
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.