The Governor General's Performing Arts Awards are an annual Canadian award, presented to honour distinguished achievements in Canadian performing arts and culture. Administered by the Governor General’s Performing Arts Awards Foundation in association with the National Arts Centre, they present lifetime achievement awards for work in all performing arts domains, including theatre, dance, film, television and radio broadcasting and both popular and classical music; the awards are, however, not necessarily presented exclusively to performers, and may also honour people who have had distinguished careers in the business side of cultural industries, such as film, television and theatre directors and producers.

The awards were created in 1992 under the patronage of then Governor General Ray Hnatyshyn and his wife Gerda Hnatyshyn.^[1]

From 1992 to 2014, they typically honoured six figures per year;^[2] since 2015 they have honoured five. In addition to the lifetime awards, they also present the National Arts Centre Award to honour a figure who has had significant career achievements within the past year but is not yet considered to be at the "lifetime achievement" stage of their career, and the Ramon John Hnatyshyn Award for Voluntarism in the Performing Arts to honour people who have been active in voluntary service to the arts.

Recipients of the lifetime achievement and NAC awards receive $25,000 and a commemorative medallion; recipients of the RJH award receive a medallion, but are not given money. The awards are presented at a live gala at the National Arts Centre, and are typically recorded for broadcast by CBC Television at a later date.

Once inducted into one of the main "lifetime achievement" categories, a recipient is not honoured again in future years; however, a recipient of the NAC or RJH awards may be later named as a lifetime achievement recipient.

In 1994, Paul Gessell of the Ottawa Citizen criticized the foundation for honouring Neil Young, on the grounds that he had lived in the United States for many years and had, according to Gessell, "turned his back" on Canada, and Gilles Vigneault due to his support of the Quebec sovereignty movement.^[3] He further predicted, correctly, that Joni Mitchell would be an honoree in the near future, but opined that she was an inappropriate choice for the same reason as Young.^[3] In 2001 he criticized the awards for paying lip service to diversity in Canadian arts despite the fact that only two people of colour, pianists Oscar Peterson and Jon Kimura Parker, had ever been named as honorees as of that time.^[4]

One named honoree in 2005, singer-songwriter and poet Raymond Lévesque, declined the honour due to his support of the Quebec sovereignty movement.^[5] The awards proceeded that year with five lifetime honorees instead of six.^[6]

In 2018, Governor General Julie Payette faced controversy when she announced that she would not be presiding over the ceremony, the first time in the history of the awards that the sitting governor general did not attend.^[7] Payette offered little clarification of her reasons for not attending, but had faced some criticism since the beginning of her term around her apparently limited workload.^[7]

Due to a change in the award's scheduling from fall to spring, the awards were not presented in 2007.^[16]

Jazz singer Michael Bublé was named as the recipient of the National Arts Centre award in 2016;^[25] however, as he was unable to attend the gala due to vocal cord surgery, he received the award at the 2017 gala instead.^[26]

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic in Canada, the 2020 gala was cancelled; however, as that year's recipients had already been announced in February before COVID-related lockdowns came into effect, they were honoured at a 2021 gala, with no new honorees named for 2021 itself.^[36]

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