Friday morning, the crews were in downtown Ottawa, approaching the protective coating of bronze statues around the National Memorial of War before a whirling royal visit on Monday.
King Charles and Queen Camilla will approach Canada for their first visit since the coronation over two years ago.
Royal observers say that travel is important at a number of levels.
“If you had told me six months ago, even three months, that the king would open the Parliament of Canada, delivering the speech of the throne, I would not have believed you,” said Robert Finch, president of the Monarchist League of Canada.
“But the events of the world and the circumstances have somehow aligned the stars.”
Prime Minister Mark Carney and the Liberal government asked the King to open the Parliament, which Queen Elizabeth II did twice before in 1957 and 1977.
The discourse, written by the government and intended to report its priorities for the legislative session, is generally read by the Governor General as a representative of the monarch.
This discourse from the throne is intended to send a clear signal beyond the borders of Canada. “Canada has an unshakable defender in our sovereign,” Carney said in a statement the day he announced the visit.
“We see the Government System of Canada in action,” said royal historian and commentator Carolyn Harris.
“We also see the distinctive history of Canada at a time when the (American) president Donald Trump threatened to make Canada the 51st state.”
Harris stressed that the king does not go as a foreign dignitary or representative of the United Kingdom, but rather as a head of state of Canada.
Get national news
For news that has an impact on Canada and worldwide, register for the safeguarding of news alerts that are delivered to you directly when they occur.
The American trade war put the king in a “delicate diplomatic situation”, she said, because he is advised by several prime ministers.
“And in the current political climate, some of these different countries where he is king has different approaches from diplomacy with the United States,” she said.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, faced with his own set of Trump’s pricing threats, asked the King to invite the American president to an unprecedented second state visit. Trump did not hide the fact that he was very happy to obtain the invitation.
While the king and the royal family are expressly apolitical, Harris said that it is common for Royal Tours to be strongly influenced by the political events of the time – and that we remember in the context of this history.
In 1959, for example, Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip visited factories and mines as a means of presenting the growing economy of Canada after the war.
“We see the emphasis on what the Canadian government wanted the world to know about Canada,” she said.
King Charles and Queen Camilla launch the visit with a stop in a producer market and a community event in Lansdowne Park Monday afternoon before a trees planting and more formal events at Rideau Hall.
Tuesday’s throne speech will start after a short procession on Wellington Street, which should attract large crowds in the Parliament’s hill region.
The King and the Queen will be led in a pram, a carriage pulled by horses led by a member of the RCMP musical conduct unit. The mounted members and the Red Serge ceremonial uniform will escort the Landau, which was built in Quebec and offered in Canada for royal visits, in the Senate.
Once the royal couple arrives in the Senate, the king will receive complete military honors and a salvation of 21 guns. Spectators will also be able to see him ready to inspect a guard and an honorary group.
Since having become a Prime Minister, Carney has spoke of Canada as “a country built on the basis of three peoples: native, French and British”, and the events of the day have been intended to integrate elements of the three parts of the country’s history.
Indigenous leaders were invited to attend the discourse on Tuesday’s throne, and the events of the day will include a group of First Nations drum, a mixedtime violinist and an Inuit elder enlightening a ceremonial lamp.
The head of the Assembly of Manitoba chiefs, the Grand-Chief Kyra Wilson, will be present and says that participation is a powerful symbol.
“First Nations people are the first peoples of this land. We have been immemorial here,” she said in an interview.
“We just have to make sure that every day there is a reminder that the First Nations are there, and we have treaties and that they must be honored and respected.”
The speech itself will be written and read in both official languages, and it is likely to attract more attention than any discourse of the throne for years.
This leads a little to a revival of the status of the monarchy in Canada, and Finch said that he called on calls of people interested in joining his organization.
In 2023, when Charles went on the throne, the Leger survey company published a survey which suggested a record of 63% of Canadians thought it was time to reconsider Canada’s ties with the monarchy.
Finch heads apathy, rather than any real desire to form a republic, but said he thought things had changed since Trump began to threaten Canada’s sovereignty.
“There was enormous public pressure, and people say,” We want the king to say something “, he said.
The discourse of the throne is “the greatest act that a monarch probably made in Canada since the Queen signed the Constitution in 1982,” he said.
“It will be one of those events which, in 25, 75 years, you look at the photos and will say:” It was a pivotal moment in the history of the country. “”