The following short excerpt is from the article “Visit Fit for a Queen: The Role of Royal Tours in Canada” by Elizabeth Kane.
This May, Ottawa plays host to not one but two royal visits. From May 12 to 16, Princess Margriet of the Netherlands attended Tulip Festival events in honour of the longstanding friendship between our two countries. On May 18, Charles, the Prince of Wales, and Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall, will visit the nation’s capital as part of their latest tour of Canada.
While visits to Canada by members of the British monarchy have been taking place since the 1700s, in the spring of 1939 King George VI and his wife Queen Elizabeth became the first reigning royals to visit Canada. It was an important time for the governments of Britain and Canada to make a public display of their bonds, as the Second World War would be declared only months later.
The reception in Canada was strong, with a million spectators lining the couple’s route to Montreal.
“The outpouring of support was partly because in 1939 the King and Queen were major league celebrities,” says Norman Hillmer, Chancellor’s Professor in the Department of History. “But there was more to it than that. The ties between the two countries were powerful.”
Hillmer describes how the tour would have been viewed by the British government of the day “which wanted to ensure that Canadians would be on side in the coming war against Hitler. And they were.”