The royal history behind the speech from the throne

Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau looks on as Queen Elizabeth II reads the speech from the throne in the Senate chamber, officially opening the session of Parliament in Ottawa on Oct. 18, 1977. THE CANADIAN PRESS

What began as a “hypothetical” invitation to His Majesty to read the speech from the throne will become a reality when King Charles III opens Canada’s 45th session of Parliament on Tuesday.

The seeds for the historic occasion were sown weeks before Mark Carney’s Liberals were elected. The Prime Minister’s Office says Carney first extended the “hypothetical” invitation when he met with the King during his foreign trip to Britain and France on March 17. The request was made in person, just three days after Carney was sworn in as prime minister after winning the Liberal leadership.

• King Charles in Canada: Where to watch his throne speech, what’s on the itinerary

PMO sources say that Carney is involved in the crafting of the Throne speech, which will mirror themes in the Liberal platform and his mandate letter to his Cabinet. There is a team of about five writers working on the speech, which will take King Charles about twenty minutes to read.

This will be only the third time in history that a reigning monarch will deliver the Speech from the Throne. The two other speeches were delivered by Queen Elizabeth II, in 1957 and 1977.

Speaking to Donald Trump

Political and historical observers say Carney’s invitation to the King is an important bulwark against American threats of annexation, because U.S. President Donald Trump respects the Royal institution.

Perrin Beatty, a former parliamentarian, says Trump “likes the trappings of the monarchy.” He attended the 1977 throne speech as a 27-year-old Conservative member of parliament.

“It’s an important sign for the King of Canada to send a message that he supports Canada’s continued existence and its sovereignty.”

Beatty notes that Trump appeared flattered when British Prime Minister Keir Starmer handed an invitation to Trump, on behalf of King Charles, for a state visit.

It’s a cue Carney may have picked up on when he used symbolic language in his face-to-face meeting with Trump. After the president spoke about getting rid of the “artificial line” that was the Canada-U.S. border, Carney told Trump that Canada, like the White House and “Buckingham Palace, which you’ve visited” are places “that are never for sale.”

Beatty says Canadians should celebrate the fact that King Charles, now 76 years old, is willing to fulfil his constitutional role in a visit that will last approximately 24 hours.

A constitutional monarchy, not a republic

“He’s no spring chicken,” Beatty said of the King. “He’s fighting cancer, and the fact that he would undertake a visit that’s as straining physically on him as this speaks to the importance he assigns to it.”

Prior to Trump’s re-election, support for the monarchy was at an all time low. A 2023 Leger poll found that 63 per cent of Canadians felt it was time to reconsider the country’s ties to the monarchy.

But at a time when Trump is threatening to turn Canada into the 51st state, historians say Canadians may be more willing to embrace the constitutional monarchy because it is what sets us apart from America.

“The sovereign is the heart, the source of gravity that holds our entire political system together and by extension makes our politics, our government and our electorate different from the United States,” says Justin Vovk, a royal historian at McMaster University.

Vovk doesn’t think that the prime minister is using the King’s visit to defy Trump, but to persuade.

“I think (Carney) doesn’t want to do anything to rock the boat with Trump. He wants to keep building and Charles being here is quite possibly one of the most important aces up the prime minister’s sleeve for finding common ground.”

A unifying crown

This is not the first time a Canadian prime minister has used the monarchy to fight forces that threatened to tear the nation apart.

In 1977, Queen Elizabeth II arrived in Ottawa during her Silver Jubilee to mark the 25th year of her reign.

Shifting geopolitical alliances characterized that era. A new global order was dominated by the United States and the Soviet Union, and nations were under pressure to align with one or the other.

But it was domestic instability that consumed Canadians at the time.

Forrest Pass, a curator at Library and Archives Canada, says the Queen’s 1977 speech from the throne was a tool to quell rising separatist voices.

A year earlier, the Parti Quebecois under Rene Levesque had swept into power, seeking political independence for Quebec.

With then-prime minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau sitting to her right, Elizabeth II announced a strategy for containing Quebec nationalism that would involve distancing the country from Britain and repatriating the Constitution.

Pass says the Queen’s 1977 speech marked the first time the government made a formal commitment to constitutional reform.

“It really is a striking formal announcement from the mouth of the sovereign that the Trudeau government was going to pursue patriation of the Constitution as a way of encouraging Canadian unity,” Pass said.

The speech, the gala and the dress

The theme of national unity was also woven into the text of the first throne speech read by a reigning monarch, 68 years ago. The words were once again spoken by Queen Elizabeth, albeit much younger, at 31-years old.

The Queen’s visit in 1957 was “long awaited and long hoped for,” says Xavier Gelinas, a curator at the Canadian Museum of History.

Canada had come out of the war with stronger ties to Britain and the majority of Canadians were loyal monarchists. It had been 18 years since a reigning monarch last visited Canada, and the Queen’s visit was the biggest celebrity event of the time. An estimated 50,000 people came to watch her arrival on Parliament Hill.

The young queen’s speech was only five pages long and imbued with praise for Canada’s scenic geography and its people. Conservative then-prime minister John Diefenbaker listened intently to the Queen’s words, which illuminated the close connection between Britain and Canada.

The speech was televised in grainy black-and-white video, but perhaps the best symbolism of the relationship of the two countries was threaded into the evening gown Elizabeth II wore to the gala after she gave the speech.

The silk cream dress designed by Elizabeth and royal couturier Norman Hartnell is adorned and interwoven with national symbols

The embodiment of the dress is a fine mingling of maple leaves and English roses exemplifying that the British monarch is in fact the Canadian monarch,” said Gelinas as he showed off the gown, stored in the bowels of the museum and affectionately known as the “maple leaf dress.”

There will be no Royal gala this year and King Charles and Queen Camilla will depart shortly after the speech.

Compared to the two previous throne-speech visits, this one is more condensed. There will still be a ceremonial guard, RCMP horses prancing, a fly past and a tree planting, but scholars say what is most important isn’t the pageantry, but the message.

Will the speech from the throne convey a sense of stability? Will it invoke national pride and reassure Canadians in a time of Donald Trump? And how will reconciliation with Indigenous peoples and Quebec sovereignty be incorporated into Mark Carney’s vision for Canada?