Governor-General For Canada

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28963, 3 August 1959, Page 11

Governor-General For Canada

(Rec. 9 p.m.) HALIFAX, August 2. Queen Elizabeth yesterday approved the appointment of Major-General George Vanier as Governor-General of Canada in one of the final official acts of her 45-day Canadian tour.

The Queen, who left Halifax for Britain last night, formally approved the appointment of the 71-year-old soldier-diplomat to succeed the retiring GovernorGeneral (Mr Vincent Massey) at a meeting with the Canadian Prime Minister (Mr Diefenbaker) and members of his Cabinet yesterday morning. The announcement had been expected for several months but General Vanier, the holder of a brilliant World War I army record and a former Canadian Ambassador to France and Greece, had refused to comment. He left for Europe on holiday last month. Canada’s first Governor-Gen-eral of French extraction, General Vanier’s career as soldier, diplomat and attorney encompasses four decades.

Although he advocated disarmament in the League of Nations and saw France fall in 1940. he tried to rouse his fellow French-Canadians to war in 1941 and served as Canada’s envoy to General de Gaulle in London and Algiers. He also was Canada's fifth Ambassador to France. French-Irish

Born in Montreal on April 23, 1888, General Vanier learned fluent French from his French father and equally excellent English from his Irish mother. He studied law and went to Ottawa to serve as aide-de-camp to two Governors-General and to marry a judge’s daughter. In World War I, General Vanier helped organise the famed Royal 22nd Regiment that saw longterm duty in the front-line trenches. He won numerous decorations for bravery and was wounded twice, the second time losing his right leg above the knee.

In spite of the loss of a leg, he was appointed second-in-com-mand of his old regiment after the war and went to Geneva as a delegate to the preparatory Disarmament Commission of the League of Nations. His diplomatic career began with an appointment as secretary to Canada’s High Commissioner in London in 1931. General Vanier has three sons and a daughter living in Europe.

A fourth son is a Trappist monk in Oka, Quebec. The retiring Governor-General (Mr Vincent Massey) can look back on a career that has been an important contribution to establishing a new tradition. As he turns over his office to another Canadian, he has . proved that a Canadian can be GovernorGeneral.

When at the age of 65 he assumed office, there were Canadians who doubted the wisdom of breaking with past tradition that

saw only distinguished Britons fill the post of the Sovereign’s representative in Canada. But hardly anyone would seriously question now that Mr Massey proved the wisdom of setting a precedent. Mr Massey will leave office after seven years, two more than the traditional five-year term. At 72, he is one year older than his successor. As Governor-General. Mr Massey travelled nearly 200.000 miles, using everything from plane to dog sled. He went to the remotest regions as well as the bigger centres of population, and always with a purpose in mind.