Roland Michener - Political Career

Political Career

Michener first ran for political office in Ontario's 1943 election as the Progressive Conservative candidate in the riding of St. David, but was defeated by William Dennison of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (Ontario Section) (CCF). Michener made an attempt to win the district again in the election that followed in 1945 and was successful in defeating Dennison, taking his seat in the Legislative Assembly. Michener was subsequently appointed by Lieutenant Governor Albert Edward Matthews to the Executive Council, acting on the advice of his premier, George Drew, who gave Michener the position of Provincial Secretary and Registrar of Ontario, tasked with formalising cabinet procedures, including agenda and minutes. However, after Dennison was again victorious in the 1948 provincial election, Michener decided to leave provincial politics for the federal variant.

The 1949 federal election was Michener's first try for the House of Commons in Ottawa, but, as with his first attempt at the Ontario legislature, he was unsuccessful. It was not until the election of 1953 that Michener finally was elected as a the Progressive Conservative (PC) Member of Parliament for St. Paul's. Three years later, the PC party elected at its leadership convention John Diefenbaker as leader, who subsequently led the Tories to a minority win in the election of 1957 and was appointed as prime minister. Though Michener was not offered a seat in the Cabinet, he was appointed speaker of the house, after the post was turned down by Stanley Knowles.

From this position, Michener angered Diefenbaker by allowing the loyal opposition a great degree of latitude during Question Period, so much so that at one point, on May 25, 1959, Diefenbaker became so flustered that he refused to sit down when called to order by Michener. Actions like these, among others, impressed parliamentary observers and a group of university professors initiated a campaign to make Michener's position as speaker permanent; they proposed that, as is the tradition with the Speaker of the British House of Commons, Michener run as an independent in general elections and that the political parties agree not to run candidates against him. Such an agreement, however, failed to materialize, and when Michener ran for re-election in the 1962 race, he was defeated. This was the first time since 1867 that a speaker had lost his riding in an election in which his party formed the government. After Diefenbaker declined to advise the Governor General to summon Michener to the Senate, the latter returned to Toronto and dedicated his time to his law practice, Lang Michener LLP.

It was in the 1963 federal election that the Liberal Party was victorious and its leader, who was thus appointed prime minister, was Michener's old friend from Oxford, Lester Pearson. Just over one year later, Pearson advised Governor General Georges Vanier to appoint Michener to the diplomatic post of high commissioner to India, which Michener took up on July 9, 1964, six months before he was also made Canada's first high commissioner to Nepal. While stationed on those foreign duties, Michener received overtures from the Prime Minister that the would be considered among the leading candidates for the governor generalship when he returned to Canada. But Vanier was in deteriorating health and, though he offered to stay on as viceroy through to the end of the Canadian Centennial celebrations, Pearson was not comfortable in advising Queen Elizabeth II to allow it. The night after he conferred with his prime minister about that matter, Vanier died on March 5 at Rideau Hall, leaving Chief Justice Robert Taschereau as Administrator of the Government in the absence of a viceroy.