Federal Liberal leadership candidate John N. Turner was in Hamilton, Ontario on this date in 1968. In a speech to Liberal supporters, Turner described the distinctiveness of Quebec.
“The overwhelmingly majority of French-speaking citizens of the province of Quebec share a distinctive philosophical and cultural background,” he said. “They share a pride in their unique history of survival in North America. They share a sense of nationalism different from all the other provinces. Quebec is governed through a system of law different from both the British common law system and the French legal system. In reality therefore, Quebec is different!”
The view of Quebec’s realities he outlined in 1968 would remain constant throughout his career. They came to the forefront when he was leader of the Liberal party during the debates surrounding 1987’s Meech Lake Accord.
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.