King Charles and Queen Camilla touch down in Ottawa for royal tour, throne speech

Canada prepares for billie jean moffitt king charles ix’s historical two-day see

The protocol, pomp and ceremony of Canada’s throne speech

4 places for Royal spotting during King and Queen's visit to Ottawa

What does the King need to know about Canada today?

What to expect from King Charles III’s visit and throne speech

The answer to that question posed earlier of whether or when Queen Camilla might wear a piece of royal jewelry with a Canadian connection came very quickly.

As soon as Camilla stepped into view after the plane bringing her and Charles to Canada had landed, it was immediately apparent she was indeed wearing the diamond maple leaf brooch.

Charles and Camilla are now doing something they are very, very good at: shaking hands and small talk.

They were greeted by an honour guard from the Royal Canadian Dragoons; the King is their colonel-in-chief. The royal couple also shook hands with students who were on site to take in the visit.

The welcome party included Gov. Gen. Mary Simon, her husband Whit Fraser, Prime Minister Mark Carney and his wife Diana Fox Carney.

Assembly of First Nations National Chief Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak and National Chief of Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami President Natan Obed were also part of the delegation.

Simon and Carney will have more thorough meetings with Charles later today.

The plane carrying Charles and Camilla’s plane has touched down in a sunny Ottawa.

The short tour is Charles's first as King and his 20th visit to the country overall.

The couple last visited in 2022 after their coronation, with stops in Yellowknife, Dettah, N.W.T., St. John's and Ottawa.

Prime Minister Mark Carney rose for the first time just a few minutes ago, marking his first ever remarks as an elected MP.

Addressing the chamber minutes after Francis Scarpaleggia was elected Speaker, he told the House he has much to learn from his seasoned colleagues.

“I will make mistakes; I have no doubt that you will call them out,” he said, while speaking to the traditions and rules “our Athenian democracy is founded” on.

“Yes, we are Athens, they are Rome,” he said while looking towards the opposition benches.

Interim Opposition leader Andrew Scheer also paid attention in history class, jokingly reminding Scarpaleggia that multiple speakers lost their heads when they delivered bad news to the King during the 14th and 16th centuries. (It’s why Canada still has the tradition of “dragging” the new Speaker to the chair.)

Scheer, a former speaker himself, pointed to John Wenlock, a speaker in the U.K. Who fought on both sides during the War of the Roses. He was allegedly killed in battle by his own commander for his indecisiveness.

“Of course, he wasn’t the last politician who tried to be on both sides of a contentious issue,” Scheer said.

Among the many focuses of attention for regular royal watchers during the visit, there is one very specific curiosity regarding Queen Camilla.

Will she wear any of the pieces of royal jewelry that have a Canadian connection?

“She has five different Canadian brooches and I would not be surprised if she was wearing one or more of these brooches over the course of the Canadian tour,” Harris told me.

One particularly likely candidate, which has a rich history, is the maple leaf brooch that was given to Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, by her husband King George VI, to commemorate their visit here in 1939.

Her daughter, Queen Elizabeth II, wore that same brooch frequently in Canada, and other royals have also had their turns with it. Catherine, now the Princess of Wales, wore it several times during her visits here as Duchess of Cambridge in 2011 and 2016.

Camilla, as Duchess of Cornwall, also wore it while she was here in 2009.

Even by the evolving pattern of royal visits, this one — at roughly 24 hours — is a short one.

Decades ago, royal tours to Canada could last weeks and take the visitors across the country.

There were sometimes shorter trips in the mix. The first official visit Queen Elizabeth made as monarch, when she also delivered a throne speech in 1957, was relatively short, from Oct. 12 to 16.

More recently, however, the visits have tended to be in the three-day range.

When Charles and Camilla were last here in 2022, to mark Queen Elizabeth’s Platinum Jubilee and her 70 years as monarch, they visited Newfoundland, Ottawa and the Northwest Territories from May 17 to 19.

“The trend generally seems to be towards these shorter royal visits,” royal historian Carolyn Harris told me.

“But certainly for this one, the focus is on opening Parliament in Canada … rather than that being a stop on a much longer tour.”

While it’s unusual in Canada for a reigning monarch to deliver a throne speech, that’s not the case in some other Commonwealth countries. It just depends on how often a government extends the invitation.

In New Zealand, Queen Elizabeth read the throne speech seven times between 1954 and 1990.

Charles’s speech on Tuesday in the Senate will mark the third time a reigning monarch has delivered a throne speech in Canada.

While Charles delayed a trip to Canada last year because of his cancer diagnosis, British journalist and royal biographer Robert Hardman says his appearance in the Senate now will have stemmed from a request by the federal government.

Given that U.S. President Donald Trump has repeatedly proclaimed that Canada should become the 51st state, Hardman says there is a clear attempt to reassert the country’s place in the Commonwealth.

There’s no doubt that the issue of sovereignty is a prime underlying driver of King Charles’s first visit to Canada as monarch, given how the visit is unfolding in the shadow of U.S. President Donald Trump’s repeated taunts over the country becoming the 51st state.

But when Charles — as a 21-year-old Prince of Wales — made his first visit to Canada itself in the summer of 1970, Canada’s sovereignty was also under scrutiny. That trip with his parents, Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip, and his sister, Princess Anne, included time in Canada’s North.

“During the Cold War there were concerns about the Arctic and Canada's sovereignty there as the Arctic was quite sparsely populated,” Toronto-based royal historian Carolyn Harris told me.

“It was the 100th anniversary of the Northwest Territories, so there was a historic occasion being recognized at that time, but the Royal Family's presence in Tuktoyaktuk, in Iqaluit, these were places that had never received a royal visit before and there was a lot of international coverage.”

They’re back! MPs filed into the House of Commons for the first time in nearly six months as Parliament returns for a short spring session.

Spotted in the crowd was Prime Minister Mark Carney, who is making his debut on the chamber floor. Missing was Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre who lost his long-held seat in last month’s election.

The first order of business was electing a Speaker of the House. Six Liberals were vying for the job after two Conservative candidates decided to withdraw their names. The House voted for Quebec MP Francis Scarpaleggia, who is now responsible for maintaining order in an often disorderly House.

He’s also responsible for applying the rules of the House of Commons in a way that is fair to all parties and defending the rights and privileges of elected members.

The job comes with significant perks. Scarpaleggia will now make a $309,000 total salary, can grab some shut-eye at a small apartment within West Block and may live at the official residence of the Speaker, an estate in Gatineau Park.

Having a Liberal MP as a Speaker takes away a vote from the party, which with 169 seats total is short of a majority government. The Speaker only votes in the House to break a tie.

4 places for Royal spotting during King and Queen's visit to Ottawa

King Charles and Queen Camilla's itinerary sheds some light on where you can catch a glimpse of Canada's Royals during the visit to the capital.

Charles and Camilla’s plane will touch down at about 1:15 p.m. ET. They will be greeted at the airport by Gov. Gen. Mary Simon, Prime Minister Mark Carney and his wife Diana Fox Carney.

The royal couple’s first stop will be at Lansdowne Park in Ottawa just before 2 p.m. Where they will meet with members of the community, vendors and local artisans. And just in case the King has forgotten he’s in Canada, he’s scheduled to watch a street hockey game.

Canada's King and Queen will then be whisked off to plant a ceremonial tree on the grounds of Rideau Hall around 2:50 p.m. It’s a tradition that dates to the early 1900s.

They will be joined by the lieutenant-governors and territorial commissioners, his representatives in the provinces and territories.

Those are the two main public events. Charles will also have an audience with both the Governor General and Carney.

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