John Diefenbaker had been interested in politics from an early age, and told his mother at the age of eight or nine that he would some day be Prime Minister. She told him that it was an impossible ambition, especially for a boy living on the prairies. She would live to be proved wrong. John claimed that his first contact with politics came in 1910, when he sold a newspaper to Prime Minister Sir Wilfrid Laurier, in Saskatoon to lay the cornerstone for the University's first building. The present and future Prime Ministers conversed, and when giving his speech that afternoon, Sir Wilfrid commented on the newsboy who had ended their conversation by saying, "I can't waste any more time on you, Prime Minister. I must get about my work." The authenticity of the meeting was questioned in the 21st century, with an author suggesting that it was invented by Diefenbaker during an election campaign.