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Whether you’re hoping to boggle friends, family and/or random strangers on the internet with your seemingly inexhaustible supply of facts and figures on Canada’s federal fiscal heritage, or just looking for a way to kill some time before the 2016 budget drops, we’ve got you covered.

Who delivered the first federal budget following Confederation?

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The very first post-Confederation budget was delivered by the Right Honourable John Rose, who originally hailed from Scotland, and represented the riding of Huntingdon, Quebec.

Following the first dominion election in 1867, he was appointed – according to the Canadian Dictionary of Biography, “unexpectedly” — to serve as Sir John A. Macdonald’s finance minister, a post he held for the next two years, at which point he resigned to join the Montreal law firm Morton, Rose and Company.

The dictionary notes that Rose and Macdonald had a “close, lifelong friendship,” and reveals that, in their youth, the pair – along with an unnamed third man – “had paid a carefree visit to the United States as strolling musicians.” The then future prime minister” played some rude instrument, Rose enacted the part of a bear and danced. . . . To the great amusement of themselves and every one else, they collected pence by their performance in wayside taverns.”