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Peter Milliken

Canadian lawyer and politician

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
People and ideasInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJul 15, 2026
Entity authorityQ445809 ↗
Source-derived summary

Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken (born November 12, 1946) is a Canadian lawyer and politician. He was a member of the House of Commons of Canada from 1988 until his retirement in 2011 and served as Speaker of the House for 10 years beginning in 2001. Milliken represented the Ontario riding of Kingston and the Islands as a member of the Liberal Party. On October 12, 2009, he became the longest serving Speaker of the House of Commons in Canadian history. His Speakership was notable for the number of tie-breaking votes he was required to make as well as for making several historic rulings. Milliken also has the unique distinction of being the first Speaker to preside over four Houses of Commons. His legacy includes his landmark rulings on Parliament's right to information, which are key elements of parliamentary precedent both in Canada and throughout the Commonwealth.

Milliken chose to stand down from Parliament at the 2011 federal election. His successor as Speaker, Andrew Scheer, was elected on June 2, 2011.

Early life and career

Milliken was born in Kingston, Ontario, the eldest of seven children to a physician father, and is a descendant of United Empire Loyalists who left the new United States of America after the American Revolution.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Peter Milliken” is canadian lawyer and politician. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Peter, Milliken and Canadian, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewStrongest as a route into the people, institutions and dated events that shaped the subject’s public record. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1946, 1988, 2011, 2001—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1946-11-12. For this dossier, Peter, Milliken and Canadian is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “canadian lawyer and politician” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 15, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q445809. VIAF identifies the subject as 170483144. The Library of Congress control number is no2019025431. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1946, 1988, 2011 and 2001.

Critical limits

Public reputation and documentary evidence do not always develop together; absence from a summary is not evidence of historical absence. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Peter Milliken”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Peter Milliken primary sources, Peter Milliken archive and Peter research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Peter Milliken”?
  2. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
  3. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
Subject index

Search terms from this dossier

Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Peter Milliken” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.