Half a million Canadians set to flock to Ottawa to see young royal couple

Prince William and bride Kate guests of honour at capital city’s Canada Day celebrations The Canadian capital city of Ottawa is preparing for an influx of up to 500,000 visitors hoping for a glimpse of the guests of honour – Prince William, the country’s probable future king, and his bride, the Duchess of Cambridge – at its Canada Day celebrations on Friday. If the enthusiasm is as great as it was for the couple’s arrival at the start of their first official overseas tour together on Thursday, it may be overwhelming. Thousands thronged the streets around the national war memorial and the grounds of Rideau Hall, the governor-general’s residence, many screaming with excitement – desperate to see the duchess in particular. The Canada Day events will start with the couple attending a citizenship ceremony for the country’s newest citizens at the Canadian Museum of Civilization . Such ceremonies are held across Canada each national day, with about 150,000 sworn in. This year, for the first time, the newly elected Conservative government has called for military service personnel – preferably veterans of its Afghan participation – to attend each ceremony and make speeches about what it means to be a Canadian. The royal couple will hand out flags to those at the Ottawa ceremony. The centrepiece of the day will be the formal commemoration of the 144th anniversary of the day Canada recognises as the start of its foundation as a state in 1867, when the provinces of the eastern seaboard formed a single dominion for the first time. More poignantly and personally for William, it is the day on which his mother, Princess Diana, would have celebrated her 50th birthday – she attended the Canada Day celebrations during a royal tour in 1983, when seven years younger than William is now. This year, the royal couple will be driven to the formal noon ceremony on Parliament Hill in the state landau before watching military and artistic displays and hearing speeches. The government says their presence “will add a youthful dimension” to the show and William will make his second speech of the tour – perhaps with a slightly better French accent than he managed on Thursday, when he promised it would improve. The couple will briefly attend a rock concert featuring Canadian bands, again on the hill, and then a firework display which they will see from the more staid surroundings of a reception at the governor-general’s residence. What is likely to thrill the crowds more though is if the couple briefly depart from their schedule and stage another walkabout, as they did on Thursday. Canadians seem to like not only the couple’s youthfulness – which is being contrasted with the Queen’s longevity and Prince Charles’s stuffiness – but also their studied informality. At a barbecue on Thursday evening, the assembled group of young Canadians fell into stunned silence as the couple approached, to be told by the prince: “Talk among yourselves.” Canada Monarchy Prince William Kate Middleton Stephen Bates guardian.co.uk

Posted by on July 1, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.