Today in Canada’s Political History: Mackenzie King takes his seat for the first time as MP

Canada’s longest-serving Prime Minister, the Right Honourable William Lyon Mackenzie King, entered the House of Commons for the first time as an elected MP on this date in 1909. “I feel quite at home,” he told his diary. “In fact, I have never felt more at home in my life than in going about as a member, with a member’s rights and privileges.”

King was destined to serve 32 years and 11 days in the House of Commons.

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.