As Canada finds itself caught up in an escalating trade war with the United States while simultaneously facing threats of annexation from President Donald Trump, one historian at McMaster University in Hamilton says he’s seeing subtle signs of support from Canada’s head of state, King Charles III.
“This is a tremendously awkward position for the monarchy to be in, largely because it’s never really happened before,” historian Justin Vovk explains. “Monarchy functions on this idea of precedent. They do things based on how they’ve done it in the past.”
In addition to teaching at McMaster University, Vovk is also a member of the advisory board with the Institute For The Study of The Crown in Canada, which studies the constitutional role of the monarchy as well as the functions performed by the sovereign, governor general and lieutenant governors.
As an expert on the Canadian Crown, Vovk says he’s observed King Charles making delicate gestures in support of Canada.
“We are seeing things like him meeting with both Justin Trudeau and Mark Carney in fairly short order. That’s quite unusual,” he explains. “We saw the King presenting a ceremonial sword to representatives of our Senate. We saw the King wearing what seemed to be very Canadian colours in press conferences and meetings he had after his meeting with Justin Trudeau.”
Still, Vovk doesn’t expect any direct statements from the Crown, given that the Royal Family is bound by tradition and constitutional mechanisms to exercise restraint.
“We’ve seen a lot of buzz around the Princess of Wales, Kate, at the Commonwealth Service, where she appeared entirely in red with an accent of white pearls, and everyone was jumping on that saying it must be a sign of support for Canada,” he added. “So these are the sorts of ways that we would see the monarchy lending that support.”
Given the monarchy’s typical pragmatic silence, Vovk believes the recent gestures from King Charles may be an indicator that he’s been asked to show support by the Canadian government.
“It means that our government has already said, we want these signals to happen. We are looking now for these signs of support from the Crown as this institution that is supposed to represent all Canadians,” he says, adding that the gestures are largely intended for the general public who are looking to see if the King is connected with the issues Canada is facing.
“They can look at a video of him planting a red maple on the grounds of Buckingham Palace, which happened in March as one of those signs [that] the king is conscious of Canada. He’s thinking about us,” Vovk explains.
