“Churchill was a consummate actor on the world stage,” Mulroney told his British audience. “His phenomenal grasp of literature and history, his experience as a journalist and writer, a military officer, a painter and a politician and most of all, his flair for public life, imbued his strategic vision and his resolve as a leader under extreme crisis.”

“He used words more powerfully than any weapon,” Mulroney continued. “They were his own personal arsenal. And when the war was over and won, he picked up his pen and wrote a memoir that stands today as a brilliant record of what happened as witnessed from the catbird seat of government.”

You can read an edited version of the former PM’s address below.

Rt. Hon. Brian Mulroney: Spanning more than half a century, the statesman we honour this evening had many connections with Canada - what he described fondly as the "Great Dominion." He visited nine times, more often than to any other country other than the U.S. and France.

In 1901, at Winnipeg, he first heard the news of Queen Victoria's death.

After resigning along with the Baldwin government in 1929, he had an extensive vacation in Canada. At Niagara Falls, he regretted that he had not tried to buy a concession there in 1900. When he returned with his daughter in 1943 en route to Roosevelt's home at Hyde Park, he was asked whether he noticed any differences. "The principle seems to be the same," Churchill quipped, "the water still falls over …."

Churchill spoke to Canada's Parliament on a more solemn occasion in the bleak days of December 1941. Despite the prevailing mood, he exuded confidence. Because the French General Weygand had told the last civilian Premier of the Third Republic that "in three weeks Britain will have her neck wrung like a chicken," Churchill derisively retorted. "Some chicken ... Some neck." The gallery and the Parliament erupted in tumultuous applause ….

What you may know less about is the vital military and economic role played by Canada.

Britain did not stand alone against Nazi Germany. On September 10, 1939, one week following Britain and two years before America, Canada's Parliament declared war on Germany. Australia, New Zealand and South Africa joined as well. That was my country's first, independent declaration of war and the beginning of the largest combined national effort in our history.

From a population of 11 million, over one million Canadians - mostly volunteers - served in uniform. Canada fielded the fourth largest air force and fifth largest naval fleet in the world. We suffered some 100,000 casualties, half of whom were killed in action.

The unforgettable radio voice of Winston Churchill - tinged with courage and sacrifice and heroism - rang out across the 5,000 windswept miles of a young but pulsating Canada and became a clarion call to all to join the battle ….

Canada was the primary location for the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan, the largest air force training program in history. More than 140,000 personnel, including 50,000 pilots, were trained, more than half of whom were Canadians. One out of six RAE Bomber Command groups flying in Europe was Canadian.

Canadian servicemen and women matured quickly under fire. Their valour and sacrifices paid dividends in the Battle of Britain, the Atlantic convoys, the invasion of Italy, the D-Day landings in Normandy and in the liberations of France, Belgium and Holland ….

After the war, our Prime Minister, Louis St. Laurent, had welcomed Churchill thus: "Your voice was the voice of human freedom and became the symbol of the unconquerable spirit of free men and women facing terrific odds. No man living has done more to bring about an association of hearts and minds between your father's and your mother's native lands."

Responding to a toast in Canada in June, 1952, Churchill offered this tribute to Canada: "There is no more spacious and splendid domain open to the activity and genius of free men, with one hand clasping in enduring friendship the U.S., the other spread across the ocean to Britain and France."

Leadership is not something learned in school. It is innate, an indelible mark of character steeped in integrity, courage, conviction, underscored by the moral imperative to do the right thing.

One reason why Churchill's life remains so poignant to this day is that we hear more about dysfunction in democratic government these days than about achievement.

Citizens have become jaded or cynical about the utility and the capacity of government. Notions of public service are waning as are many institutions intended to serve the national interest. Leadership is in short supply.

But, when you succumb to a gloomy outlook of where we are heading, keep in mind the rousing oratory and the exceptional talents displayed by Churchill at a time when there were overwhelming grounds for despondency.

Many suggest that great, inexorable currents of history themselves - and not individual leaders - seal our fate. In my judgment, however, Carlyle was on target when he observed that the right man or woman in the right place at the right time can completely change the course of history.

In fact, "transforming leadership" - leadership that makes a significant difference in the life of a nation¬ - recognizes that political capital is acquired to be spent in great causes for one's country. That is precisely the lesson from Churchill.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.