It was an exciting day on Parliament Hill on this date in 1950 with the arrival of Pakistan’s first post-independence Prime Minister, Liaquat Ali Khan. Louis St.-Laurent introduced the distinguished visitor to Canadian parliamentarians.
“The future of Pakistan,” St. Laurent said, “notwithstanding differences in religion and language, in customs and habits, notwithstanding lands and oceans which separate it from Canada, is closely related to our own through our common association in the United Nations, our partnership in the Commonwealth, and, most of all, in our common belief in those values which form the very basis of democratic life. We hope therefore that our association will become closer and closer as we get to know each other better.”
You can read Prime Minister Khan’s speech at the following link: https://parl.canadiana.ca/view/oop.debates_HOC2102_03/969
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.