Roland Michener

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Roland Michener : biography

1900-4-19 – 06 August 1991

Daniel Roland Michener (April 19, 1900 – August 6, 1991), commonly known as Roland Michener, was a Canadian lawyer, politician, and diplomat who served as Governor General of Canada, the 20th since Canadian Confederation.

Michener was born and educated in Alberta, where, after serving briefly in the Royal Air Force, he acquired a university degree. He then attended the University of Oxford as a Rhodes scholar, playing hockey there and obtaining his two masters degrees. Subsequently, Michener returned to Canada and worked as a lawyer before entering politics, first in the provincial sphere and later in the federal; Michener was elected to the House of Commons in 1957, where-after he served as speaker of the house until 1962 and then in diplomatic postings between 1964 and 1967. He was that year appointed as governor general by Elizabeth II, Queen of Canada, on the recommendation of Prime Minister of Canada Lester B. Pearson, to replace Georges Vanier as viceroy, and he occupied the post until succeeded by Jules Léger in 1974. Michener proved to be a populist governor general whose tenure is considered to be a key turning point in the history of his office.

On October 15, 1962, Michener was sworn into the Queen’s Privy Council for Canada, giving him the accordant style of The Honourable; however, as a former Governor General of Canada, Michener was entitled to be styled for life with the superior form of The Right Honourable. He subsequently served on various corporate and charitable boards and sat as Chancellor of Queen’s University before he died on August 6, 1991.

Governor General of Canada

Michener was immediately recalled from India and it was on March 29, 1967, announced from the Office of the Prime Minister that the Elizabeth II had, by commission under the royal sign-manual and Great Seal of Canada, approved Pearson’s choice of Michener to succeed Georges Vanier as the Queen’s representative. Despite being a Conservative, Liberal members of parliament and cabinet ministers welcomed the selection of Michener; Paul Martin Sr. said "I don’t think there was anybody inside or outside the public service who could qualify better than Michener… People just felt that this was a good appointment." Michener was subsequently sworn-in during a ceremony in the Senate chamber on April 17 that year, leaving one of the shortest periods where an individual has been governor general-designate.

The hurry did not end there, as, only ten days after Michener was made viceroy, he officially opened that year’s World’s Fair, Expo 67, which was held in Montreal. The fair, combined with the 100th anniversary of Confederation, attracted some 53 heads of state, as well as numerous other dignitaries, to visit Canada and, as per diplomatic protocol, it was Michener, as the representative of Canada’s head of state, who greeted and held audience with each of them. Among this litany of guests was United States president Lyndon B. Johnson; Grace, Princess of Monaco; Jacqueline Kennedy; Emperor Haile Selassie; and French president Charles de Gaulle. Michener welcomed the latter when he landed at his first stop in Canada, Quebec City, where the president addressed the gathered crowd, and they cheered wildly for him in return, but booed and jeered Michener when the Royal Anthem, "God Save the Queen", was played at his arrival.

Beginning in 1963, the Front de libération du Québec (FLQ) became active in detonating some 95 bombs around Montreal, resulting in multiple arrests, which then led to the October Crisis in October, 1970. On the 5th of that month, FLQ members kidnapped British trade commissioner James Cross and, five days later, did the same to Quebec’s minister of labour, Pierre Laporte. However, it was in 2010 revealed through interviews conducted with 12 of those involved in the kidnappings, including Jacques Lanctôt and Jacques Rose, done for a documentary aired on Tout le monde en parle, that Michener had originally been their intended target; the FLQ leaders allegedly planned to commandeer the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s Télévision de Radio-Canada and conduct a 24 hour telethon with the Governor General bound in a chair as a prop on the stage. Ultimately, with the two officials missing, Michener, as Governor-in-Council, invoked the War Measures Act and Quebec police, with the support of the Canadian Forces, rounded up hundreds of individuals, leading to the detention of the kidnappers and their accomplices.