Her Majesty the Queen’s representative to Canada, the Rt. Hon. Georges Vanier, the nation’s 19th Governor General (only the second Canadian to serve in the vice-regal post) passed into history on this date in 1967. He was 78 and had served at Rideau Hall since his appointment by Her Majesty on the advice of John Diefenbaker in 1959. At the time, and on through today, Vanier is considered one of the great Governors General of the modern-era.
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.