Prince Charles, who is most likely to become the King of Canada despite many polls indicating that few Canadians like the idea of him as head of state, took a quick tour of much of the country this week with Camilla, his wife. They arrived in St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador, arrived at Ottawa and eventually moved to Yellowknife in the Northwest Territories, as well as the Yellowknives Cree First Nation community in Dettah, before flying home.
When they arrived, I wrote about the Canadians’ antipathy towards Charles who succeeded Queen Elizabeth, his mother, to the throne, as well as the constitutional and political difficulties of any attempt to change the country’s head of state.
One of the people I spoke to was Philippe Lagassé, an associate professor at Carleton University and an expert on the role of the monarchy in Canada. He has some interesting proposals about how the country could reconcile disagreements between monarchists and those in favor of a Canadian head of state without revising the constitution.
The first time I covered a royal tour was in July 1981, when I was a student reporter for The Globe and Mail. The Queen Mother and Princess Margaret traveled to different places in Ontario for reasons I have long forgotten.
Much of the time, royal tours are usually about photos and videos of the visitors shaking hands and then shaking some more hands. For reporters there is often relatively little to write about: members of the royal family rarely give speeches during their visits, usually at most one. Indeed, shortly before his departure on Thursday, Charles spoke to an enthusiastic crowd in Yellowknife about the need to combat climate change and achieve reconciliation with indigenous peoples.
At these events, reporters are usually kept at a distance, making eavesdropping on the royal visitors’ conversations with Canadians impossible. Follow-up conversations with the people they meet often suggest that the aristocratic visitors mainly ask general questions, nod and listen.
Interviews with the royals are, of course, out of the question. During Margaret and the Queen Mother’s journey in 1981, there was an off-the-record cocktail reception with them and the reporters covering the tour. Warren Barton, the Globe’s subway editor at the time, rightly believed that, as a substitute for readers, journalists shouldn’t chat with aristocrats if they can’t tell their readers about it. So I was ordered to stand outside the hotel reception in silent protest.
But nobody flinched when I had to rent a tuxedo to attend an art gala Margaret opened.
For this most recent trip, I didn’t have a suit, let alone a tuxedo. But the trip presented some of the same logistical challenges as my first tour, when some confusion over scheduling left me stuck in Timmins, Ontario overnight. At the time, because of my student grant, I had no credit card and no money for a hotel room. This week only the British news media about Charles and Camilla and a few photographers from news agencies were able to reserve seats on a Royal Canadian Air Force Airbus that followed the jet carrying the royal couple. Matching the movements of the planes on commercial flights was an impossibility, so I just traveled straight to Yellowknife.
This was my second time following Charles for The Times since 2009. I also covered Prince William, Charles’ son, and Kate, the Duchess of Cambridge, on their first international visit, in 2011. And Dan Bilefsky and I wrote extensively about Prince Harry and Meghan, his wife, during their temporary move to British Columbia. In 2016, the very first edition of this newsletter reported on another William and Kate visit to Canada.
But I was never commissioned to cover the first royal visitor I saw. And with Queen Elizabeth’s health increasingly becoming a cause for concern at age 96, it’s unlikely I’ll get another chance to do so.
This week’s Trans Canada section was curated by Vjosa Isai, a Canadian news assistant at DailyExpertNews.
Bruce Mau, a celebrated graphic designer, said in an interview with The Times: “I didn’t even know the word” design, but the moment you have a certain result in mind, you become a designer. Run a result systematically is His life, including the domestic violence he experienced at his childhood home in Sudbury, Ontario, and the beginning of his journey into the design world in Toronto, are explored in the new documentary ‘Mau’.
The Cannes Film Festival continues for another week and Canadian director David Cronenberg is competing for the Palme d’Or with his first film in eight years. The film, called ‘Crimes of the Future’, will be screened on May 23.
For Vancouver-born actress Sarah Goldberg, the jump from theater to television was daunting. But Goldberg, 36, found her way, landing an Emmy nomination and creating buzz around her starring role in the HBO dark comedy “Barry.”
Public health authorities around the world are reporting cases of monkey pox, including several in Montreal.
The Maple Leafs ended their NHL playoff run, but the Edmonton Oilers and Calgary Flames meet in round two for the first time since 1991, the final Battle of Alberta.
Chef Matty Matheson has opened a new restaurant in Toronto’s trendy Queen Street West neighborhood. The setting, a kind of airy wooden cathedral, gives the level of Mr. Matheson to the persona he developed in his cooking videos. “I’m 40 now and Prime Seafood Palace is a very mature, beautiful, attentive restaurant,” said Mr. Matheson in an interview with T: DailyExpertNews Style Magazine.
In Opinion, writer Jane Coaston reflects on the need to overcome fear and anxiety. She spoke with Martin Antony, professor of psychology at Toronto Metropolitan University and co-author of “The Anti-Anxiety Program.”
Born in Windsor, Ontario, Ian Austen was educated in Toronto, lives in Ottawa and has reported on Canada for DailyExpertNews for the past 16 years. Follow him on Twitter at @ianrausten.
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