History was made on this date in 2005 with the installation of Michaëlle Jean as Governor General. Appointed by the Queen on the recommendation of Prime Minister Paul Martin, Jean’s is an incredible story. This becomes all the more clearer when you consider that Madam Jean had first arrived in Canada as a refugee from her native Haiti. During her installation address, she praised the Queen that she would represent for the next five years in Canada. “Let me begin by speaking about hope,” Governor General Jean said. “During the 22^nd visit to Canada by Queen Elizabeth II last May, Her Majesty reminded us that we can ‘make a difference’ for those who will come after us. If we make an effort in our own lives and in our way of improving the world around us,’ she said, ‘we will have every reason to be proud of what we have accomplished.’ That observation is a perfect reflection of the woman who is deeply concerned about the fate of humanity, whom I had the honour of meeting at Balmoral. It is an expression of hope that parallels my own.” After her service to Canada as Governor General, Jean became Chancellor of the University of Ottawa and then took to the international stage as head of La Francophonie. caption id="attachment_931278" align="alignleft" width="267" Governor General Michaëlle Jean and Queen Elizabeth/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.