Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau was in Washington on this date in 1974 for his first bilateral meetings with an American who would soon become a close Trudeau friend, President Gerald R. Ford. In political retirement Trudeau would say that Ford, who hailed from Michigan, was a very true friend of Canada, a personal friend, and one to whom Canada owed a great deal. It was Ford, after all, who insisted that Canada be a member of the G7. Trudeau never forgot President Ford’s successful advocacy on our nation’s behalf.
Thanks to the hard-working staff of the Gerald R. Ford Library in Michigan, you can read a report of the talks between Ford and Trudeau at this link.[caption id="attachment_1577677" align="alignleft" width="277"]
Prime Minister Trudeau and President Ford[/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.