Canada’s sitting Prime Minister, the Right Honourable Stephen J. Harper, made history on this date in 2013 with the release of his book A Great Game: The Forgotten Leafs and the Rise of Professional Hockey. Incredibly, Harper wrote and researched his book while a national party leader and Prime Minister, working on it for almost a decade.
“I started in 2004 and literally spent fifteen minutes a night—some nights less, some nights more—for nine years, plugging away on the research, writing, and editing,” he wrote in his memoirs, Here For Canada: The Memoirs of the 22nd Prime Minister, that was released Tuesday. “Then, at last, there it was—a serious book, quasi-academic, well-documented, and thoroughly researched... The journey in producing the book fulfilled its purpose—a thoroughly diverting project that helped keep me sane in moments when I needed it most. I also share my father’s sentiment of seeing lasting value in it. After all, I may turn out to be the only serving prime minister to write a book about something other than himself! To the surprise of many, including me, A Great Game quickly became an instant national bestseller.”
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.