On August 31, 1987, the eyes of the French-speaking world were on Quebec City as Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, on behalf of Canada, hosted the Francophonie Summit. It was only the second time the summit had been held.  It was another example of Prime Minister Mulroney’s deft and more inclusive approach to federalism, with Quebec and New Brunswick  officials participating alongside Canada's representatives – an approach PM Pierre Trudeau had previously rejected.“More than two centuries ago, like a branch separate from its trunk, 60,000 French-speaking people were left to face their North American destiny alone,” Mulroney said at the summit’s opening, in one of his greatest speeches. “What fate awaited this small band of settlers so abruptly exposed to collective uncertainty and the need to question at their own identity? Would the wide-open spaces, so appropriate to their disproportionate dreams, imprison them in their isolation and cut them off from the rest of the world? …. The answer, silent and persistent, could only stretch out in time and space …. Today, it speaks out vigorously; the French language and the values it represents have survived and will always be alive in North American …. Those 60,000 settlers are now six million people.”[caption id="attachment_69224" align="alignleft" width="384"] Former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney[/caption]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.