Georges-Philias Vanier PC DSO MC CD (French: [ʒɔʁʒ(ə) vanje]; 23 April 1888 – 5 March 1967) was a Canadian military officer, diplomat, and statesman who served as the 19th governor general of Canada from 1959 to 1967, the first Quebecer and second Canadian-born person to hold the position.

Vanier was born and educated in Quebec. In 1906, he was valedictorian when he graduated with a BA from Loyola College. After earning a university degree in law, he served in the Canadian army during the First World War; on the European battlefields, he lost a leg and was commended for his actions with a number of decorations from King George V.

Subsequently, Vanier returned to Canada and remained in the military until the early 1930s, when he was posted to diplomatic missions in Europe. With the outbreak of the Second World War, Vanier once again became active in the military, commanding troops on the home front until the cessation of hostilities in 1945, whereupon he returned to diplomatic circles.

Vanier was appointed to replace Vincent Massey as governor general in 1959 by Queen Elizabeth II, on the recommendation of Canadian Prime Minister John Diefenbaker, and he occupied the post until his death in 1967. Vanier proved to be a popular governor general, with his war record earning respect from the majority of Canadians; however, as a Quebecer, he was met with hostility by Quebec separatists.

Vanier was born in the Little Burgundy neighbourhood of Montreal to an Irish mother, Margaret (Maloney), and a French-Norman father, Philias Vanier, who raised Vanier to be bilingual. Vanier was descended from Guillaume Vanier of Honfleur who moved to Quebec City around 1670 and in 1672 married Magdeleine Bailly, a fille du roi from Paris. The Vanier family resided in Quebec City at first and in the 18th century moved up the St. Lawrence river to Montreal, the biggest and wealthiest city in New France. Vanier's maternal grandparents were John Maloney and his wife Elizabeth (née Fitzgibbons), Irish immigrants who arrived in Montreal in search of a better life. Vanier's father was a successful businessman and was one of the first people in Montreal to own an automobile, which he never learned how to drive, instead hiring a chauffeur. Vanier's father was wealthy enough to own two cottages, one on Lake Memphremagog and another on the St. Lawrence.

He attended the Jesuit-run Loyola College (a collège classique), receiving in 1906 a Bachelor of Arts degree in church devotional fellowship. At Loyola, Vanier received the typical collège classique education with a strong emphasis on Catholic theology, Latin, Greek, philosophy, the classics, literature and math with the only difference being that his education was in English instead of French, as was usually the case with the collège classiques. Vanier was considered to be a very good student who excelled both academically and at sports such as boxing and especially hockey.

At Loyola, inspired by his literacy heroes, John Keats and Percy Bysshe Shelley, he entertained the ambition of being a poet. Under the pseudonym Georges Raymound, Vanier had several of his flowery English language poems published in The Siemens Magazine of Toronto. Though Vanier later admitted that his efforts at poetry were somewhat embarrassing, his favorite English poets remained Keats and Shelly for the duration of his life. As a student, he was quiet and reserved with his passions reserved for hockey as he later recalled that his happiest moment at Loyola was scoring the winning goal for his school's hockey team with just a minute left in the game. The most important intellectual influence on Vanier at Loyola was a French Jesuit, Father Pierre Gaume, who taught French at the school. Inspired by Father Gaume, Vanier hired a tutor, a Frenchman living in Montreal, Camille Martin, who introduced him to French literature and culture in general. Martin was a mysterious character who had left France for unknown reasons and ran his tutoring services for the French-Canadian haut bourgeois out of his house on Mackay street, known locally as "The Hermitage". Martin was an inspiring teacher and his influence on the teenage Vanier was described as "enormous". In 1906, Vanier was the class valedictorian when he graduated from Loyola.

In 1908, Father Gaume, who continued to correspond with Vanier, criticized him for his reserve, leading Vanier to reply: "Intimate feelings of joy, sadness, desires, aren't something to write about. They can be spoken about, and in fact are more often understood, with gestures, looks and tones of voice". In another letter, Father Gaume criticized Vanier for his fondness for Molière, warning him that Molière had written "abominable things" about the Catholic Church, and should only be read in censored versions of his works. Though several of Vanier's Jesuit teachers had suggested that he pursue a career as a priest, the rigid worldview of his teachers such as Father Gaume who tried to steer him away from writers such as Molière seems to have persuaded him against a career as a priest. In May 1908, Vanier wrote to Father Gaume to say that after much thought, he had decided that he lacked the calling to be a priest.