Today in Canada’s Political History: R.B. Bennett delivers his maiden address in the House of Lords

It was on this date in 1942 that one of Canada’s greatest parliamentary performers, R.B. Bennett, took to his feet for the first time as a member of the House of Lords at Westminster. His service in that historic chamber meant he now held a unique parliamentary. Bennett had now been a member of the Legislature of the Northwest Territories, the Alberta Legislature, the House of Commons, and now the House of Lords in London.

Bennett was elevated to the Lords on the advice of UK Prime Minister Winston Churchill and served with distinction there as the Viscount Bennett of Mickleham, Calgary and Hopewell, until his death in 1947.

You can read Bennett’s maiden address at this link: https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/lords/1942/jan/28/situation-in-the-south-west-pacific

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.