Vanier became a Canadian diplomat and represented Canada at the League of Nations and in London, Paris, and Algiers. At the conclusion of the Second World War, he was named Canada’s first-ever Ambassador to France. General Vanier retired from the diplomatic service in the early 1950s and returned to Canada where he enjoyed a successful career in business and law.

Installed as Governor General in September 1959, Vanier was the first Francophone to serve as Queen Elizabeth’s representative in Canada. He would hold Canada’s highest non-elected office before passing into history, still Governor General, in early 1967. A deeply spiritual and religious man, and a devout Catholic, he and his wife Pauline have long been considered candidates for Sainthood. Arthur Milnes is an accomplished public historian and award-winning journalist.  He was research assistant on The Rt. Hon. Brian Mulroney’s best-selling Memoirs and also served as a speechwriter to then-Prime Minister Stephen Harper and as a Fellow of the Queen’s Centre for the Study of Democracy under the leadership of Tom Axworthy.  A resident of Kingston, Ontario, Milnes serves as the in-house historian at the 175 year-old Frontenac Club Hotel.