King Charles's visit to Canada: A Commonwealth flex with an audience of one

Globe and Mail

24-05-2025

Long ago, in a land far, far away (the political landscape of four months ago), a small but mighty kingdom was being menaced by a much larger one with a mad king on its throne.
The leaders of the small kingdom gathered in the coldest month of the year to sort out how to protect themselves. One of those leaders, who hailed from a mighty rock perched in a savage sea, came forward with an idea.
The bigger kingdom heated its homes and powered its wondrous machines with fuel from the smaller kingdom. Perhaps that power source could be their queen – dangerous and powerful, even in repose – in this chess match no one had asked for, the man from the rock explained.
'We don't need to expose our queen this early,' he said. 'The opposition does need to know the queen exists, but they don't need to know what we do with the queen.'
As it turned out, at that first ministers meeting in Ottawa back in January, Newfoundland and Labrador then-premier Andrew Furey had the right idea on how Canada might seek leverage in the trade war started by U.S. President Donald Trump. He was just a little off in the particulars.
The royal element would not be a chess metaphor, but a literal thing, and the master move would involve not a queen, but the King.
It was in his first postelection news conference that Mark Carney unfurled the news that King Charles III would open Canada's 45th Parliament by reading the Throne Speech. The Prime Minister described it as 'a historic honour which matches the weight of our times.'
It is that, sure. But in the face of Mr. Trump's constant threats, this visit was also clearly designed by Mr. Carney as a branding exercise, a live-action history lesson, a sovereignty manifesto and – maybe most of all – a Commonwealth flex directed at the White House.
'I think it's a very deliberate way to say to the world – and Canadians as well – who we are and who we aren't,' said Patricia Treble, a Canadian journalist who covers the Royal Family. 'That we are a constitutional monarchy, we are not a republic. The King of Canada is Charles III.'
When Mr. Carney was first sworn in as Prime Minister, he described Canada as a country 'built on the bedrock of three peoples: Indigenous, French and British,' and he has repeated that framing over and over since.
His first official trip – to Paris, London and Iqaluit – echoed that trifecta. It was in London during his audience with the King that Mr. Carney invited him to read the Throne Speech, an idea he says the King 'warmly endorsed.'
When Mr. Carney announced that diplomatic coup, he couldn't resist pointing out that he'd been highlighting Canada's founding story since his first moments as Prime Minister, and now the head of state was coming to town. The whole thing was an elaborate set-up for geopolitical Show and Tell.
'If you want to really put your finger on Canadian sovereignty, well, bringing the person who personifies and embodies the Canadian state and Canadian sovereignty is a good way to do that,' said Philippe Lagassé, Barton Chair at the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs at Carleton University and a specialist on the Crown and the Constitution.
A senior government source said the idea is to emphasize Canada's distinctive history and identity as a way of underlining its sovereignty in the face of U.S. aggression. The Globe is not identifying the source because they were not authorized to discuss these matters publicly.
The source agreed that the King's presence is a show of Canadian muscle, and said this is also intended to demonstrate that Mr. Carney has working relationships with leaders all over the globe.
Ms. Treble pins meaning to the fact that this visit was shoehorned into a packed royal calendar, even as the King deals with cancer.
'He's going across five time zones and however many kilometres for essentially 24 hours,' she said, adding, 'It is that important for him, and for him, he knows the symbolism of this.'
Only twice before has the sovereign delivered the Throne Speech in Canada ‐ in 1957 and 1977. The first occasion has clear echoes here, Ms. Treble said, because it was Queen Elizabeth's first visit to Canada after ascending the throne, as it will be for the King.
'This is incredibly rare, and that rarity, I think, emphasizes the importance,' she says.
A royal visit is always a chance to draw a global spotlight, but the peculiar nature of a Throne Speech means the Canadian government gets to put words in the King's mouth that the entire world will watch him say.
The government source said there has been extensive back-and-forth with Buckingham Palace to review the speech, though the content is broadly in line with the Liberal election campaign, platform and mandate letter Mr. Carney released for his cabinet.
'Even if the government is very careful not to put inappropriate language in the King's mouth, if it does try and send a signal through that speech, how is it going to be received in the U.S.?' said Mr. Lagassé.
And then there is the more vivid, lizard-brained message of this visit, aimed straight at Mr. Trump.
This is the President who redecorated the Oval Office with what looks like a can of gold spray paint and some garage sale picture frames, in an almost childlike performance of luxury and class. He reveres celebrity and social status, and the Royal Family possesses the rarest and therefore most valuable form of both: birthright.
'The signal intended, I think, is quite brilliant, because obviously the top of mind is how you deal with Donald Trump,' said Colin Robertson, a former Canadian diplomat and vice-president of the Canadian Global Affairs Institute. 'And Donald Trump, we know, loves the royals. He'd like to be King himself. The visit to Buckingham Palace when the Queen was there was one of the highlights – he said this several times – of his first term as President.'
None of that was lost on British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who arrived at the Oval Office brandishing a letter from the King inviting Mr. Trump on a second state visit, which Mr. Starmer touted with Trumpian superlatives as 'really special' and 'unprecedented.' It paid off in a trade deal between the U.S. and the Britain.
'Americans love pomp and circumstance. They revolted and separated from the U.K., but they have never really let go of their reverence, I think, for the glory,' said Roy Norton, former chief of protocol for the province of Ontario and the federal government, among other diplomatic experience. 'And nobody more than Trump more overtly revels in that. So I don't blame Starmer – it's a tool in the tool box.'
Mr. Carney has displayed a performative nonchalance in how he has talked about the King's visit. It reads like someone in a cartoon whistling casually while they dig a big hole in the ground, cover it with sticks and then hide behind a nearby rock to see who wanders by.
When a British reporter asked Mr. Carney whether he was 'trying to send a message' to Mr. Trump, he went all coy, saying that the message was 'first and foremost, to Canadians' about their own sovereignty.
She tried again: Really, it has nothing do with Donald Trump?
'All issues around Canadian sovereignty have been accentuated by the President, what he's said, they exist in normal times as well,' Mr. Carney said. 'So no, it's not coincidental, but it also will be a reaffirming moment for Canadians.'
Then she asked Mr. Carney what Canadians thought of the invitation to Mr. Trump for another state visit to the U.K.
'To be frank, they weren't impressed by that gesture,' Mr. Carney said, adding that it 'cut across' the message about Canada's sovereignty.
As Mr. Trump lumbers around the globe setting fire to anything that catches his eye, one of the few counterbalances to his immense, malevolent power is the fact that he is as intense and obvious as a small child in what he loves, wants and fears. He loves wealth, fame and status; he wants to be seen as possessing all of that by the gilded bucketload; he fears being disdained by those who have more of those things than he does.
One way to handle a man like that is to convince him that an honest-to-goodness King desperately wants to have him as a dinner guest. Another way to deal with that man is to show him that the King will come for dinner at your place if you invite him, because even if it's not always obvious, the King he idolizes belongs to you, too.