Daniel Roland Michener

Educated at the University of Alberta (1920), Roland Michener attended Oxford as a Rhodes scholar, where he became friends with Lester B. Pearson, the future Prime Minister of Canada. He practiced law in Toronto while sitting on the Executive Council of Ontario and became the secretary general for the Rhodes Foundation. A Conservative, he was elected to the Ontario legislature (MPP, 1945-1948) and later entered the federal Parliament (MP, 1953-1962). He was also a Cabinet minister (1946-1948) under Mackenzie King. Michener was Speaker of the House of Commons (1957-1962), but when he suffered defeat in the 1962 General Election, Prime Minister Pearson appointed him High Commissioner to India and first Canadian Ambassador to Nepal (1964-1967). Michener was recalled to take the post of governor general in 1967 after the death of George Philias Vanier. During his tenure he presided over the opening of Expo 67, Montréal's international exhibition, which concided in time with the controversial visit of General Charles de Gaulle praising "free Québec" in his speech. Michener was required to sign the War Measures Act into law during the 1970 October Crisis, when members of the Front de libération du Québec kidnapped a British trade commissioner and Québec's labor minister from their Montréal homes. Among the Michener innovations were frequent state visits abroad, periodic meetings with provincial lieutenant-governors, and the establishment of an Honors Secretariat (the Order of Canada having been instituted in 1967) at Rideau Hall. After his term as Governor General, Michener served as Chancellor of Queen's University in Toronto until 1980.