National
The Queen visited Canada more than any other country during her long reign
By Michael MacDonald in Halifax
It wouldn’t be a stretch to suggest the Queen held a special place in her heart for Canada.
As an ardent world traveller, she visited this country more than any other during her reign, and she was in the habit of referring to it as home.
If you include overnight visits and aircraft refuelling stops, the Queen visited Canada no less than 31 times since her coronation in June 1952, according to the Canadian Heritage Department.
In second place is Australia with 18 visits, including stopovers, according to the The Royal Family’s official website.
“I think she really developed a warm affection for us,” says Barry MacKenzie, a spokesman for the Monarchist League of Canada. “She’s done a marvellous job of taking advantage of all of those opportunities to meet Canadians and to develop a taste for life here.”
Here are some highlighfts from her visits:
1. Fall 1951
Royal watchers say the Queen’s close relationship with Canada started even before she acceded to the throne.
On Oct. 8, 1951, Princess Elizabeth arrived at Montréal–Dorval International Airport, where she was met by 15,000 people on the tarmac.
Over the next 33 days, the princess and her husband, Prince Philip, travelled across the country and back again, visiting a total of 60 communities and every province.
She took in hockey games in Montreal and Toronto, made a side trip to Washington, D.C., to visit U.S. President Harry Truman, and square danced at Rideau Hall.
The quiet, 25-year-old princess and the gregarious prince were met by large crowds wherever they went, with some reports suggesting that one million people turned out to see them in Toronto and even more showed up in Montreal.
“It was an incredible feat of stamina,” says MacKenzie, a history instructor at St. Francis Xavier University in Antigonish, N.S.
“People recognized that this young woman was next in line …. And she also had the added bonus of having a husband who was a war hero. They were young. They were beautiful.”
At the end of the tour, in a farewell radio message broadcast from St. John’s, N.L., Princess Elizabeth referred to Canada as her “second home.”
“Wherever we have been throughout the 10 provinces … we have been welcomed with a warmth of heart that has made us feel how truly we belong to Canada.”
—
2. Fall 1957
The Queen’s first official visit to Canada was a high-profile, four-day tour that included her first ever televised speech, broadcast live from Rideau Hall on Oct. 13, 1957.
The next day, she officially opened a new session of Parliament by reading the speech from the throne in the Senate chamber, with Prince Philip at her side.
It was the first time a reigning monarch opened the Canadian Parliament. The speech was also carried live on television.
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3. Summer 1959
The longest royal tour in Canadian history was a gruelling, 45-day marathon that started on June 18, 1959 in eastern Newfoundland.
The highlight of the visit was the official opening of the St. Lawrence Seaway on June 26, when the Queen was joined by U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower aboard the Royal Yacht Britannia at the lift-lock near St. Lambert, Ont.
Five days later, on Canada Day, the Queen delivered a televised address from a sunny veranda at Rideau Hall.
“If I have helped you feel proud of being Canadian, I shall feel well satisfied, because I believe with all conviction that this country can look to a glorious future,” she said.
The Queen and Philip travelled to every province and both territories, logging 24,000 kilometres.
“This is the first time since she became Queen that everyone in Canada had the opportunity to see her,” says MacKenzie. “And it’s the last time that we see one of these huge undertakings.”
The official itinerary included a trip to the Calgary Stampede, where Philip donned a cowboy hat, and numerous stops along the Great Lakes, including a trip to the World’s Fair in Chicago.
On the last leg of their tour, the young couple made an unscheduled stop in eastern New Brunswick to meet the families of fishermen who died on the night of June 20-21 when a hurricane roared over the Northumberland Strait. The brutal storm capsized more than two dozen fishing boats, killing 35 men and boys — most of them from the village of Escuminac.
At Pointe-du-Chêne, N.B., the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh met with 16 grieving widows and their families on July 29.
Among them was a “tiny grey-haired woman in black, surrounded by 12 of her 18 surviving children,” The Canadian Press reported at the time.
“(She) sat on a Northumberland Strait wharf …. and blinked back the tears as she received a sympathetic smile and kind word from Queen Elizabeth.”
—
4. Summer 1967
The Queen and Prince Philip spent six days in Ottawa and Montreal to celebrate Canada’s centennial.
Under bright sunshine on Parliament Hill, 50,000 people watched as the Queen cut into a gigantic birthday cake decorated with the coat of arms of each province and territory.
And in Montreal, the Queen rode the automated monorail that was part of the Expo 67 international exhibition.
That brief visit was marked by tight security as organizers wanted to avoid what happened in 1964 when the Queen’s visit to Quebec City was marred by waves of police using truncheons to round up separatist protesters who were shouting slogans and singing irreverent songs.
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5. Spring 1982
A four-day tour of Ottawa culminated in a ceremony on a sleet-soaked Parliament Hill, where the Queen joined Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau to sign the proclamation of the Constitution Act
The act gives the Canadian Parliament the right to amend the constitution without the approval of the British Parliament.
The Act’s passage, marked by royal assent from the Queen on April 17, 1982, signalled the last stage of Canada’s political evolution from colony to fully independent state.
But it did not signal the end of the monarchy in Canada. Far from it. The Queen remained Canada’s head of state and she retained her title as Queen of Canada.
“She wasn’t signing a document and giving us our freedom,” says MacKenzie. “This was the Queen of Canada signing an act that had been passed in her name in the Canadian Parliament …. It was not a declaration of independence.”
—
6. Summer 2010
On the Queen’s final visit to Canada, she told a crowd in Halifax exactly how she felt about this vast part of her realm.
“It is very good to be home,” she said on June 28 as she started a nine-day tour that would also take her to Ottawa, Winnipeg, Waterloo, Ont., and Toronto.
“My mother once said that this country felt like a home away from home for the Queen of Canada …. I am pleased to report that it still does.”
In Ottawa, she celebrated Canada Day with a crowd of 70,000 on Parliament Hill, where she took a more wistful tone in her speech.
“During my lifetime, I have been witness to this country for more than half its history since Confederation,” she said. “I have watched with enormous admiration how Canada has grown and matured while remaining true to its history, its distinctive character and its values.”
In her book, “A Royal Couple in Canada,” author Allison Lawlor says that on each of the Queen’s many visits to Canada, she “succeeded in gracefully lifting Canadians out of their everyday lives for a few moments.”
“Not only has she witnessed the growth of Canada, but generations of Canadians have watched the progression in her life as she moved from being their beautiful princess on her first visit in 1951, to a young mother raising four children, to a dignified Queen, and … as an elder, worldly stateswoman.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 8, 2022.
From the Fraser Institute
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is very concerned about financial conflicts of interest that Prime Minister Mark Carney may be hiding. But I’m far more concerned about the one out in the open; namely that while Carney is supposed to act for the good of the country he’s lobbied to defund and drive out of existence Canada’s oil and gas companies, steel companies, car companies and any other sector dependent on fossil fuels. He’s done this through the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ), which he founded in 2021.
Carney is a climate zealot. He may try to fool Canadians into thinking he wants new pipelines, liquified natural gas (LNG) terminals and other hydrocarbon infrastructure, but he doesn’t. Far from it. He wants half the existing ones gone by 2030 and the rest soon after.
He has said so, repeatedly and emphatically. He believes that the world “must achieve about a 50% reduction in [greenhouse gas] emissions by 2030” and “rapidly scale climate solutions to provide cleaner, more affordable, and more reliable replacements for unabated fossil fuels.” (By “unabated” he means usage without full carbon capture, which in practice is virtually all cases.) And since societies don’t seem keen on doing this, Carney created GFANZ to pressure banks, insurance companies and investment firms to cut off financing for recalcitrant firms. “This transition to net zero requires companies across the whole economy to change behaviors through application of innovative technologies and new ways of doing business” he writes, using bureaucratic euphemisms to make his radical agenda somehow seem normal.
The GFANZ plan (outlined on page 9 of the final report) puts companies into four categories. Those selling green technologies or engaged in work that displaces fossil fuels will be rewarded with full financing. Those that still use fossil fuels, or have investments in others that do, but are committed to being “climate leaders” and have set a path to net-zero, will also still be eligible for financing. Those that still do business with “high-emitting firms” but plan to reach net-zero targets on an approved time scale can get financing for now. And companies that own or invest in high-emitting assets must operate under a “Managed Phaseout” regime or may be cut-off from investment capital.
What are “high-emitting assets”? Carney’s group hasn’t released a complete list but a June 2022 report (p. 10) listed examples—coal mines, fossil-fuel power stations, oil fields, gas pipelines, steel mills, ships, cement plants and consumer gasoline-powered vehicles. The finance sector must either sever all connections to such assets or put them under a “Managed Phaseout” regime, which means exactly what it sounds like.
So when Carney jokingly suggested it doesn’t matter if his climate plan drives up costs for steel mills because people don’t buy steel, he could have added that under his plan there won’t be any steel mills before long anyway. Or cars, gas-fired power plants, pipelines, oil wells and so forth.
GFANZ boasts at length about its members strong-arming clients into embracing net-zero. For instance, it extols Aviva for its “climate engagement escalation program… Aviva is prepared to send a message to all companies through voting actions when those companies do not have adequate climate plans or do not act quickly enough.”
To support these coercive goals Carney’s lobbying helped secure the implementation in Canada of rule B-15, the Climate Risk Management Directive from the federal Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (OSFI), which requires banks, life insurance companies, trust and loan companies and others to develop and file reports disclosing their “climate transition risk.” This requires asset holders to conduct extensive and costly research into their holdings to determine whether value may be at risk from future climate policies. The vagueness and potential liabilities created by this menacing regulation means that Canada’s largest investment firms will eventually decide it’s easier to divest altogether from fossil fuel and heavy industry sectors, furthering Carney’s ultimate goal.
Yet Carney will become prime minister just when Canadians face a trade crisis that requires we quickly build new coastal energy infrastructure to ensure our fossil fuel commodities can be exported without going through the United States. I have listened to him say he will take emergency measures to support “energy projects” but I assume he means windmills and solar panels. He has not (to my knowledge) said he supports pipelines, LNG terminals, fracking wells or new refineries. Unless he disowns everything he has said for years, we must assume he doesn’t.
Canadian journalists should insist he clear this up. Ask Carney if he supports the repeal of OSFI rule B-15. Show Carney his GFANZ report. His name and photo are on page vi, in case he has forgotten it. Ask him, “Do you still endorse the contents of this document?” If he says yes, ask him how we can build new pipelines and LNG terminals, expand our oil and gas sector, run our electricity grid using Canadian natural gas, heat our homes and put gasoline in our cars if his plan succeeds and the financing for all these activities is cut off. If he tries to claim he no longer endorses it, ask him when he changed his mind, and why we should believe him now if he seems to change his core convictions so easily.
I hope the media will not let Carney be evasive or ambiguous on these matters. We don’t have time for a bait-and-switch prime minister. If Mark Carney still believes the rhetoric he published through GFANZ, he should say so openly, so Canadians can assess whether he really is the right man to address our current crisis.
Ross McKitrick
Professor of Economics, University of Guelph
Economy
Energy East and GNL Québec could have redirected $38.4 billion worth of energy products per year to markets other than the United States
By Gabriel Giguere
The construction of pipelines between Eastern and Western Canada would have helped diversify Canadian export markets and should be considered anew in the context of the U.S. tariff threats, says the MEI in a Viewpoint published this morning.
“Canada’s high level of dependence on U.S. trade is not unavoidable,” explains Gabriel Giguère, senior policy analyst and author of the report. “It is the direct result of years of policy decisions that have delayed or actively impeded major infrastructure projects.”
97 per cent of Canada’s oil exports went to the United States last year. For natural gas exports, the number was 100 per cent.
European and Asian markets, however, are also interested in these resources, as evidenced by recent declarations from Japan, South Korea, Germany and Poland.
Had the GNL Québec project gone ahead, it had been projected to be operational as early as next year.
Based on its transport capacity of 46 million cubic meters of gas per day, its implementation could have diverted 19.4 per cent of Canadian gas exports to Europe, representing $1.7 billion worth of goods per year.
Had the Energy East pipeline project gone ahead, it was expected to have been operational by 2021.
Based on its transport capacity of 1.1 million barrels per day, commissioning of the pipeline could have diverted 27.7 per cent of Canadian oil exports from the United States to Europe, an amount worth $36.7 billion per year.
In the context of the recent tariff disputes with the Americans, asserts the MEI researcher, these projects should be revisited.
“Trump has demonstrated that the U.S. is not as dependable a trading partner as we have long believed, and that Canada needs new infrastructure to increase its resilience,” says Giguère. “Both provincial and federal governments will need to consider this new reality when evaluating new energy transmission projects.”
Canada is the world’s fourth-largest producer of oil, and fifth-largest producer of natural gas.
A SOM-La Presse poll published last month shows that Quebecers are now largely in favour of the return of pipeline projects such as GNL Québec and Energy East.
The MEI Viewpoint is available here.
* * *
The MEI is an independent public policy think tank with offices in Montreal, Ottawa and Calgary. Through its publications, media appearances, and advisory services to policymakers, the MEI stimulates public policy debate and reforms based on sound economics and entrepreneurship.
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