Charles Vincent Massey PC CH CC CD FRSC(hon)[n 1] (February 20, 1887 – December 30, 1967) was a Canadian diplomat and statesman who served as the 18th governor general of Canada from 1952 to 1959.

Massey was born into an influential Toronto family and was educated in Ontario and England, obtaining a degree in history and befriending future prime minister William Lyon Mackenzie King while studying at the University of Oxford.

At the University of Toronto, he enlisted in The Queen's Own Rifles of Canada in 1907 and joined the Kappa Alpha Society,[5] through which he met future prime minister William Lyon Mackenzie King, who would be his long-time friend.

He ran for the House of Commons in the riding of Durham in the 1925 federal election, but was defeated[7] Though he thereafter resigned his cabinet post, Massey was still included in the Canadian delegation to the 1926 Imperial Conference,[8] where was drafted the Balfour Declaration that would ultimately lead to vast constitutional changes in the role of the monarch and his viceroys throughout the empire.

[13] Reflecting his Anglophilia, Massey quite consciously sought to model his mannerisms after those of an upper-class "English gentleman", which limited his political appeal as it led to accusations of snobbery.

[14] Massey's style of convoying a "tranquil consciousness of effortless superiority" that he picked up during his time at Oxford annoyed many Canadians, most notably his patron Mackenzie King, who decided that being a high commissioner to Britain would be the best place for him.

However, five days after Massey relinquished his post in Washington, DC, Mackenzie King's Liberal Party was defeated in the federal election, and Richard Bennett became prime minister.

[23] The abdication crisis cemented Massey's dislike of the man who rapidly become his least favorite British politician, Winston Churchill, who supported the king's right to keep his throne and marry Mrs.

[23] Massey in his reports to Mackenzie King (who acted as his own External Affairs minister) described Churchill as a reckless adventurer who was "exploiting the crisis for his own political ends".

[28] By contrast, te Water was respected for his intelligence, although disliked for being arrogant and aloof, while Bruce, as appropriate for a former Australian prime minister, was felt to be the most approachable of the high commissioners and had a populist "down-to-earth" demeanour.

[33] Massey was opposed to the alliances that France signed with Czechoslovakia in 1925 and with the Soviet Union in 1935, seeing this as irresponsible diplomacy on the part of the French, who were attempting to preserve the Versailles system instead of giving in to German demands, as he felt that they should.

[34] Much of Massey's favourable views about Nazi Germany were due to his talks with Lothian, who assured him that if only the Treaty of Versailles were revised, the peace of the world would be saved.

[9] Two such persons were Viscount and Viscountess Astor, who were the nucleus of the Cliveden set, which itself was a group of aristocratic individuals rumoured to be Germanophiles, not only in favour of the appeasement of Hitler, but also supporters of friendly relations with Nazi Germany.

However, Canadian immigration policy at the time favoured trained farmers, which excluded most Jews, who were largely city dwellers,[38] and the Cabinet of Mackenzie King was already resistant to changes in the law.

[50] By contrast, Massey, te Water and the Irish high commissioner John Dulanty all supported accepting Hitler's demand that the Reich be allowed to occupy the Sudetenland prior to 1 October 1938.

At a meeting with the Dominions Secretary Sir Thomas Inskip, te Water, supported by Massey, assailed the change of policy, saying that Germany still deserved "one more chance of saving face".

Later that same day in a meeting at 10 Downing Street, te Water and Massey both told Chamberlain that Germany "had a genuine claim to Danzig", which made it an "extremely bad reason" to risk a war over.

Through Massey was not enthusiastic about the possibility of Britain going to war, he came to increasingly accept that it might be inevitable unless Hitler could be persuaded to back down in the Danzig crisis.

[35] An additional pressure for a change in views came from Lord Lothian, who had a volte-face in his thinking about Nazi Germany, and was by the spring of 1939 was now convinced that Hitler was seeking world domination.

[28] As Charles te Water was fired on 7 September 1939 for opposing South Africa's entry into the war, Bruce and Massey were regarded as the co-leaders of the high commissioners.

Massey, thus, was to be a compromise: while it was known he was closely associated with the Liberal Party, having been the group's chairman during the 1930s, the governor general-designate was a Canadian by birth but he also embodied loyalty, dignity, and formality, as expected from a viceroy.

"[8] But the elite demeanour he was sometimes criticized for was not evident in Massey's belief that the Crown belonged to Canadians and that it was his task as viceroy to act as a link between the people and the monarch.

He travelled across the country, using any and all available transportation, including canoe and dog sled, and delivered speeches promoting bilingualism, some 20 years before it became an official national policy.

[89] Massey also toured the Canadian arctic extensively, journeying to such places as Frobisher Bay and Hall Beach in the Northwest Territories, meeting with local Inuit residents, participating in their activities, and watching their performances.

During his governor generalship, Massey also became actively involved with Upper Canada College, donating funds and his time to the school and seeing a number of spaces there named in his honour in return.

Though such a thing was never realised during his viceregal tenure, he helped lay the groundwork for the system that would be implemented by his successor, and in 1967, just months before his death, Massey was inducted as one of the first companions of the Order of Canada.

[79] Upon his final departure from Rideau Hall as governor general, Massey retired to Batterwood House, in the village of Canton, near Port Hope, Ontario.

[92] Just prior to the end of his time as governor general, the Queen wrote to Massey: "I wish to send you my congratulations and my sincere thanks for the manner in which you have discharged [your] duties.

[94] His donation of Hart House to the University of Toronto stipulated that the building be restricted to men only, and it was not until after his death that the deed of gift was altered to allow for women becoming full members in 1972.

[8] He was buried alongside his wife at historic St. Mark's Church in Port Hope; his was among the last burials permitted in the small cemetery (Farley Mowat was interred in 2014).