Royal birth at Ottawa hospital celebrated with tulips 80 years after liberation of Netherlands

CBC

12-05-2025

It's a story that's become part of the lore of the City of Ottawa.
During the Second World War, members of the Dutch royal family were given safe haven in Canada to escape the Nazi occupation of their country. On Jan. 19, 1943, Princess Margriet was born at what was then the Ottawa Civic Hospital to Princess Juliana and Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands.
"It was a ray of light in the midst of war. Everybody in the Netherlands knew about it, from the secret radio [transmissions]," said Margriet Vonno, ambassador to Canada from the Kingdom of the Netherlands.
A government proclamation declared the maternity ward of the Civic temporarily extraterritorial, which meant the new princess could be born a Dutch citizen despite entering the world on Canadian soil.
"It was a bleak time. [Dutch] people were hungry, they were beaten," said Vonno. "And then there was a new princess being born, and the idea that the royal family could return — that we could return to normal."
At the Civic campus of The Ottawa Hospital on Monday, the ambassador handed out bouquets of tulips to hospital staff. More flowers were sent inside to be shared with patients.
The gesture was meant as a thank you for keeping the Dutch royal family's legacy alive, more than 80 years after the princess was born at the hospital.
It was also an opportunity for The Ottawa Hospital to demonstrate how the royal birth story will be preserved when it moves to a gleaming new facility that's currently under construction just down Carling Avenue.
"That legacy of Princess Margriet and Queen Juliana is part of the history of this organization," said Ottawa Hospital president and CEO Cameron Love.
Love said it's a story the hospital is determined to keep telling after it moves to the new facility, slated to open in 2028.
"We're still in the process of determining how best to commemorate that legacy," he said. "It's too early to say exactly how that's going to be structured."
This year marks the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Netherlands, and for many Dutch people it's a part of their family stories.
"My parents were liberated by Canadian soldiers," said Vonno. "My father was four years old. He got his first bar of chocolate from a Canadian soldier."
Vonno said Princess Margriet had intended to be in Ottawa to mark the occasion, but a skating mishap prevented her from coming.
"Unfortunately, Her Royal Highness couldn't come because she fell while skating," said Vonno, explaining the 82-year-old royal was skating 10 kilometres to raise money for leukemia research when it occurred.
"She skated for nine kilometres, 400 meters, and then she fell," said Vonno.
Even with an injured arm, the princess wanted to make the trip to Canada, but doctors advised against it, according to Vonno.
"It's a very cool princess that we're having," she said admiringly.
Vonno said the trip is merely postponed, not cancelled.