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.
—
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.
—
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.
Governments are not real estate developers, and Canada should take note of the failure of New Zealand’s cancelled program, highlights a new MEI publication.
“The prospect of new homes is great, but execution is what matters,” says Renaud Brossard, vice president of Communications at the MEI and contributor to the report. “New Zealand’s government also thought more government intervention was the solution, but after seven years, its project had little to show for it.”
During the federal election, Prime Minister Mark Carney promised to establish a new Crown corporation, Build Canada Homes, to act as a developer of affordable housing. His plan includes $25 billion to finance prefabricated homes and an additional $10 billion in low-cost financing for developers building affordable homes.
This idea is not novel. In 2018, the New Zealand government launched the KiwiBuild program to address a lack of affordable housing. Starting with a budget of $1.7 billion, the project aimed to build 100,000 affordable homes by 2028.
In its first year, KiwiBuild successfully completed 49 units, a far cry from the 1,000-home target for that year. Experts estimated that at its initial rate, it would take the government 436 years to reach the 100,000-home target.
By the end of 2024, just 2,389 homes had been built. The program, which was abandoned in October 2024, has achieved barely 3 per cent of its goal, when including units still under construction.
One obstacle for KiwiBuild was how its target was set. The 100,000-home objective was developed with no rigorous process and no consideration for the availability of construction labour, leading to an overestimation of the program’s capabilities.
“What New Zealand’s government-backed home-building program shows is that building homes simply isn’t the government’s expertise,” said Mr. Brossard. “Once again, the source of the problem isn’t too little government intervention; it’s too much.”
According to the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation, Canada needs an additional 4.8 million homes to restore affordability levels. This would entail building between 430,000 to 480,000 new units annually. Figures on Canada’s housing starts show that we are currently not on track to meet this goal.
The MEI points to high development charges and long permitting delays as key impediments to accelerating the pace of construction.
Between 2020 and 2022 alone, development charges rose by 33 per cent across Canada. In Toronto, these charges now account for more than 25 per cent of the total cost of a home.
Canada also ranks well behind most OECD countries on the time it takes to obtain a construction permit.
“KiwiBuild shows us the limitations of a government-led approach,” said Mr. Brossard. “Instead of creating a whole new bureaucracy, the government should focus on creating a regulatory environment that allows developers to build the housing Canadians need.”
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.
While Beijing-backed hackers infiltrated Canadian telecoms, federal and B.C. leaders quietly financed a billion-dollar shipbuilding deal with a Chinese state firm—then tried to pass the buck.
So just to recap—because this one’s almost too absurd to believe: BC Ferries cuts a billion-dollar deal with a Chinese state-owned shipyard to build four new ferries. Canada’s Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland—always quick to perform outrage when the cameras are on—writes a stern letter saying how “dismayed” she is. She scolds British Columbia for daring to do business with a hostile foreign regime that’s literally attacking our critical infrastructure in real time.
And then—wait for it—it turns out her own federal government quietly financed the whole thing.
Yes, really.
According to an explosive report from The Globe and Mail, the Canada Infrastructure Bank—a federal Crown corporation—provided $1 billion in low-interest financing for the very same China shipbuilding deal Freeland claimed to oppose. The contract was signed in March 2025. The outrage? That only came later, when the public found out about it in June.
Freeland’s letter to BC’s Transportation Minister was loaded with warnings. She talked about China’s “unjustified tariffs” and “cybersecurity threats.” She demanded assurances that “no federal funding” would support the purchase. But what she didn’t mention—what she conveniently left out—was that Ottawa had already cut the cheque. The financing was already in place. The loan had been approved. Freeland just didn’t say a word.
And when reporters asked for clarification, what did her office say? Nothing. They passed the buck to another minister. The new Infrastructure Minister, Gregor Robertson, now claims the government had “no influence” in the procurement decision. No influence? You loan a billion dollars to a company and have no opinion on where it goes?
Let’s be clear: This wasn’t some harmless miscommunication. If it wasn’t a cover-up, then it was sheer incompetence—the same brand of incompetence that’s driven our shipyards into obsolescence, our economy into dependence, and our country into managed decline. An entire federal cabinet stood by, watched this unfold, signed the cheque—and then pretended they had nothing to do with it.
And British Columbia’s government? Just as bad. Premier David Eby, the man who pretends to champion “BC First,” claims he was “not happy” with the China deal but says it’s “too late” to change course. Too late? This isn’t an asteroid heading for Earth. It’s a contract. And contracts can be rewritten, canceled, renegotiated—if anyone in charge had the political will to stand up and say, “No, we don’t hand billion-dollar infrastructure projects to hostile regimes.”
But instead, we get excuse after excuse. They say BC Ferries is independent. They say there was no capacity in Canada. They say we had no choice. All the while, Canadian shipyards sit idle, unionized workers are frozen out, and the Canadian taxpayer is stuck subsidizing Chinese shipbuilding—and Chinese espionage.
Because while all of this was happening, we now know that a Chinese state-sponsored hacking group called Salt Typhoon was actively breaching Canadian telecommunications networks. That’s not speculation—it’s confirmed in a federal cyber security bulletin dated June 19, 2025.
Chinese actors exploited a vulnerability in Cisco equipment and infiltrated the networks of at least one major Canadian telecom provider. They pulled config files, rerouted traffic through GRE tunnels, and monitored call metadata and SMS communications. Translation: They were spying. On us. On officials. On infrastructure.
So let’s break this down. In February, China hacked Canadian telecoms. In March, Canada quietly finances a massive shipbuilding contract with China. In June, Freeland pretends to be outraged—while hiding the fact that her own government bankrolled it.
And now we’re told, “There’s nothing to see here. No jurisdiction.”
Really?
Freeland has jurisdiction when it comes to issuing carbon taxes, banning handguns, and lecturing citizens about disinformation—but somehow has no jurisdiction when her own Infrastructure Bank gives a billion dollars to build ships in a country that’s attacking our networks and undermining our democracy?
And it gets worse. The interest rate on the loan? Just 1.8%. That’s below market. That’s a subsidy, plain and simple. The financial gap will be recorded as government funding. So even if the Liberals want to play word games about “no direct funding,” that distinction is meaningless. The money came from taxpayers. It went to BC Ferries. It ended up in the hands of the Chinese Communist Party.
So what do we call this? It’s not economic strategy. It’s not climate policy. It’s not forward-looking infrastructure planning.
It’s decline. Managed decline.
It’s a government that tells Canadians we’re too broke, too slow, too divided to build our own ships. So we’ll just outsource it. To the same regime our intelligence services say is spying on us and interfering in our elections.
This was a test. A big one. And the people who told you they were going to put “Canada First”—people like David Eby and Mark Carney—failed that test spectacularly. When it came time to make a real choice—stand with Canadian workers, Canadian industry, and Canadian sovereignty—or cave to foreign pressure and cheap outsourcing, they chose China.
And then they lied about it.
But Canadians aren’t stupid. We know what leadership looks like—and this isn’t it. We don’t need more slogans. We need action. We need courage. We need people in government who actually believe in this country and the people who built it.
Because Canada can build ships. Canada can defend its infrastructure. And Canada should never hand over critical national projects to a regime that’s actively working against our interests.
If this is what “Canada First” looks like under the Liberals and the BC NDP, then we need something better. It’s time to stop managing decline and start building again.
Call the election. Let Canadians choose a path forward—one rooted in strength, in sovereignty, and in pride. Let us choose leaders who put Canada first—for real.
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