Ottawa Police Service cruisers near Parliament Hill in Ottawa on May 25.Spencer Colby/The Globe and Mail
Follow our live coverage of the King’s visit here.
It was an overcast morning at Ottawa’s Lansdowne Park as the Lorde song Royals came on over a restaurant loudspeaker across from the local farmers’ market on Sunday. If it hadn’t been one of a random procession of pop songs playing to an empty patio, it might have seemed like an ironic choice, given that King Charles III and Queen Camilla were set to visit the market the following day.
Then again, few market visitors seemed to know the King would be making a stop here during his first trip to Canada as monarch this week, and there was little evident excitement relative to some past royal visits.
The song Royals by Lorde played from a restaurant loudspeaker in Ottawa on Sunday near where the King and Queen Camilla will be on Monday.
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Carley Morris and Ben Jousselin, an engaged couple who live nearby, found out from their favourite baker at the market that morning that the King was coming. Neither will skip work to watch. “Charles is down the list for me,” said Ms. Morris, holding her Pomeranian Barbara Jean in her arms. Besides, she added, “I feel we are strong enough on our own.”
But two merchants who will get to meet the King in a special scaled-down, 20-stall market set up for the visit at the request of the federal Heritage Department were excited. Ahmad Altaouil, a Syrian refugee who runs a falafel stand, has been invited because, he has been told by organizers, the King wants to try a falafel.
“They told me two days ago, ‘The King, he needs to see you,’” he said. “I said, ‘Are you sure? Are you serious?’ This is a great honour and I’m a little nervous. This is a very special moment for me.”
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Owner of Falafel Guys Ahmad Altaouil near his Ottawa Farmers’ Market stall at Lansdowne Park in Ottawa on May 25.Spencer Colby/The Globe and Mail
Ann Marie Rochon chairs the association that runs the market and will set up a fruit and vegetable stand for the royal visit.
“It’s nice that he’s taking an interest in visiting a local market,” she said. “This may be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for a lot of us to be next to a royal and talk to him. I have a lot of respect for that institution. It feels like it’s for show, but in my heart, that’s what makes Canada unique and great.”
This royal visit will feature pomp and pageantry, including the planting of a ceremonial tree at Rideau Hall, full military honours with a 21-gun salute, and an RCMP Musical Ride horse-drawn landau ride past Parliament Hill.
But there is purpose to the King’s visit at the invitation of Prime Minister Mark Carney. The monarch will not only read the Throne Speech to open the 45th session of Parliament, but, it is hoped, also reinforce the idea that Canada has no interest in changing its status from sovereign nation and Commonwealth member to 51st U.S. state – which President Donald Trump has repeatedly demanded. That was clear to several people interviewed Sunday at or near places the King and Camilla are set to visit.
Anne Marie Rochon of Rochon Garden Centre near her Ottawa Farmers’ Market stall on May 25.Spencer Colby/The Globe and Mail
“If I was Carney and I was prime minister I’d want to call in my big friends,” said Karrin Powys-Lybbe, a Toronto corporate lawyer having breakfast with a friend at Kettleman’s Bagel across from Lansdowne.
“I think it’s more of a power play than about the monarchy in particular. Trump respects people who have power,” she said. The fact that Mr. Carney can get the King to come to Canada for the Throne Speech shows that the Prime Minister has power and influence, she added. “I have to think that helps with a guy like Trump.”
Sarah Leahy, an Ottawa teacher who was walking toward Lansdowne, also said she thought that inviting the King was a “power move” by Mr. Carney. “It’s deliberate and distinguishes us from how we’re different from the U.S.,” she said, though she doubts many Americans will pay attention.
At Rideau Hall, Danny Woods, a visitor from Sussex, England, said that the royal visit showed “unity between Commonwealth countries. Trump shouldn’t be able to walk over people.”
People walk past The Great British Pasty & Pie Co. stall at the Ottawa Farmers’ Market on May 25.Spencer Colby/The Globe and Mail
In some ways it feels that Mr. Trump is the main audience for the visit. Many Ottawans have been preoccupied with other events: Race Weekend or Saturday’s Great Glebe Garage Sale, or cheering on the Ottawa Charge of the Professional Women’s Hockey League during their championship series against the Minnesota Frost.
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At Lansdowne, around the Cenotaph, along Wellington Street and even at Rideau Hall – all places the royals will visit – there was little evidence of fanfare or flourish. The only sign near Lansdowne of an impending royal visit was a sad-looking tote bag in the window of a flag shop on Bank Street featuring images of the King.
Some questioned the point of it all. As baker Serafino Sigler zipped around the kitchen of the Wild Oat Bakery a few blocks north, he said that while he was “a bit of a royalist,” he wondered what impact the visit would have. “If you ask most people they probably wouldn’t know he’s coming, unless you live in Ottawa, because it will create traffic jams” he said. “Will it accomplish anything? Probably not.”
Baker Serafino Sigler adds water into a bread mixer during a morning shift at the Wild Oat Bakery, Cafe & Farm in Ottawa on May 25.Spencer Colby/The Globe and Mail
Sadia Khan, meanwhile, said she’s “not supportive at all” of the visit, calling it a waste of taxpayer money. The Kashmiri-born researcher with the First Nations Information Governance Centre (who said she was not speaking on behalf of her employer but expressing a personal view) called the visit “a slap of the face” to Indigenous people, accusing the monarchy of “colonialism, extraction, continued imperialism and exploitation.”
“I don’t think we need to reach back into the British monarchy in order to fight off American expansionism,” she said.
Simon Fraser University sustainable energy engineering professor Vahid Hosseini, who was visiting Parliament Hill with several research students in advance of a conference in Ottawa, said he didn’t see “any reason why the King is coming here.”
When the students were asked if they thought the royal visit would make a difference, one of them, Shedrach Ezenwali, replied, “No, Trump is a crazy guy. He doesn’t care.”
Editor’s note: This article has been updated to clarify that Sadia Khan was expressing her personal views and was not speaking on behalf of her employer.
Editor’s note: This article has been updated to correct the name of The Great British Pasty & Pie Co. in a photo caption.