King Charles is enjoying a popularity boost and there is considerably more support for maintaining Canada’s ties to the Crown now than when he assumed the throne, according to public opinion polls released this week around his two-day visit to deliver a historic throne speech.
After the long-reigning and hugely popular Queen Elizabeth died in 2022, there was talk across the Commonwealth realms, including in Canada, about whether it was time to do away with the Crown and embrace republicanism.
The U.K.-based Lord Ashcroft firm released a poll ahead of Charles’s coronation showing particularly dire levels of support for the monarchy in Canada, finding this country ranked close to last among the 15 countries that have the King as their head of state.
At the time, just 23 per cent of the 2,020 Canadian respondents surveyed as part of that poll said they would vote to keep the Crown if there was a referendum, Lord Ashcroft found.
The picture has changed dramatically in the wake of U.S. President Donald Trump’s 51st state taunts and sovereignty threats, which has prompted a revival of national pride and newfound affinity for Canadian institutions and symbols, polls suggest.
Also, some people here have gotten to know Charles better and they like what they see, pollsters say.
Polling firm Pollara surveyed some 3,400 Canadians between May 20 and 24 and found Charles’s popularity in Canada has risen substantially since the last time the firm polled on the issue in 2022, with the number of people holding a positive view of the sovereign up some seven percentage points to 44 per cent and those with a negative view down 10 points to 23 per cent.
That growth in personal popularity has fuelled support for Canada remaining a constitutional monarchy, Pollara found, with more respondents saying they want the country to keep the Crown (45 per cent) compared to the number who say they want it gone (39 per cent) — a reversal from the last poll the firm did when a plurality of people reported they want to cut ties.
In an interview with CBC News, Dan Arnold, the chief strategy officer at Pollara, said there has been a “statistically significant” increase in support for Charles and maintaining the Crown in Canada.
“Canadians are feeling better about the Crown and I would speculate that’s probably because they’re looking for a little bit of stability in a world that feels unstable right now. And there’s nothing more stable than an institution that’s been around for multiple centuries,” Arnold said.
“This is, to some extent, seen as an institution that gives us something in this fight with Trump.”
He noted that while his numbers still aren’t as high as his mother’s were, “we see a clear increase in terms of the people who feel good about him and a sharp decline in his negatives.”
Arnold says Charles’s performance as King is part of the reason why.
“Charles came to power at a time when there was a lot of controversy around him — anybody who’s watched The Crown or followed the news for the last 30 years knows all about that — and he’s been able to put some of that behind him or at least tamp it down a bit during his time on the throne,” Arnold said, adding Charles’s cancer battle may also have prompted some sympathy.
An Ipsos poll, also released this week, found 66 per cent of the 1,000 people it surveyed in May say Canada’s relationship with the monarchy is useful because it sets us apart from our neighbours to the south who live in a presidential republic — up from 54 per cent who said the same in April 2023.
Sixty-five per cent of the Ipsos respondents said the monarchy is an important part of Canada’s heritage, up from 58 per cent two years ago.
There’s also been a drop in respondents who say Canada should cut ties to the Crown, falling from a high of 60 per cent in January 2020 to 46 per cent now — a result roughly in line with what Pollara found.
And it’s not just polls that suggest Charles is enjoying a better standing in Canada — the monarch drew sizeable crowds throughout Ottawa on his tour with Queen Camilla this week. The turnout was stronger than what greeted him on his 2022 visit, when he came as the Prince of Wales.
Thousands of cheering spectators snaked through the parliamentary precinct to catch a glimpse of Charles in the royal landau ahead of his speech, a warm reception that appeared to prompt some emotion from the sovereign.
“Royals don’t normally ‘do’ emotion, at least they do their very best to hide whatever feeling they have. But for some reason, King Charles seemed unable to do that on this occasion at the end of a short, but highly significant, visit,” British broadcaster ITV noted in its coverage of the speech.
“It was the warmest of welcomes and the fondest of returns to a nation and a people we love,” Charles and Camilla themselves said in a joint statement released after their visit.
John Fraser, the founding president of the Institute for the Study of the Crown in Canada, said he doesn’t pay much attention to polls — support for the monarchy can go up and down depending on what’s going on in the news.
But Fraser said it is evident that more people are rallying around the Crown now than they were just a few years ago.
“Mr. Chrétien was on to something when he said we should give the Order of Canada to Trump,” Fraser said in an interview referring to the former prime minister’s quip, adding that the Trump factor has breathed new life into many Canadian institutions, not just the monarchy.
“The president may well have given the Crown in Canada a leg up,” he said.
King Charles received a long round of applause on Tuesday in the Senate as he cited Canada’s national anthem, saying the song reminds us, ‘the true north is, indeed, strong and free.’
Charles’s Canadian sovereignty talk in the throne speech this week — and his pledge that the country is “indeed” the True North “strong and free” — also likely gave the Crown’s standing a boost, Fraser said, especially among people who were clamouring to see the head of state say something as the country faces Trump’s annexationist musings.
“I thought he handled himself impeccably,” he said.
“This throne speech really cemented Charles’s role in Canada,” added Robert Finch, the chairman of the Monarchist League of Canada. “I’ve always said the real threat against the monarchy isn’t republicanism per se but apathy. Well, after this week, there’s a real sense of renewed interest in this institution.”
He said republicans were counting on an unpopular King Charles to sever Canada’s ties to the monarchy.
“I just don’t think that’s going to present itself now,” Finch said. “There are certain moments in history that can make or break something and I think this particular tour, in some part due to the timing and the Trump factor, helped make King Charles’s position in Canada secure and for that I’m very grateful.”
Still, some chafed at the idea of Charles taking a stand for Canada in the face of Trump.
“We’re telling Donald Trump, ‘You’re not the foreign billionaire who’s our boss. This is the foreign billionaire who’s our boss,'” said Pierre Vincent, a spokesperson for Citizens for a Canadian Republic.
