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The Royal Tour of Canada - Day Four and Five

Aside from the Vancouver Olympics, where is the best place to put your Canadian pride on display? In our nation's capital on the 143rd birthday of Canada! To top it all off we had the Queen of Canada to celebrate right along with us!

OTTAWA, ON - JULY 01: Queen Elizabeth II and Prime Minister of Canada Stephen Harper arrive on stage for the Canada Day celebrations on Parliament Hill on July 1, 2010 in Ottawa, Canada. The Queen and Duke of Edinburgh are on an eight day tour of Canada starting in Halifax and finishing in Toronto. The trip is to celebrate the centenary of the Canadian Navy and to mark Canada Day. On July 6th the Royal couple will make their way to New York where the Queen will address the UN and visit Ground Zero. (Photo by Chris Jackson/Getty Images) The Queen arrived in an open, horse-drawn landau, patriotically dressed in a red chiffon dress with a diamond maple leaf brooch, and a white hat with red flower. Ladies from the Royal family have been known to provide a compliment to the host country through their fashions and Her Majesty did not disappoint. As a matter of fact she could easily have blended in with the 100,000 flag-waving, revellers dressed in similar colors. I'll bet she doesn't have to worry about that very often.

To signal her arrival The Queen's Personal Canadian Flag was flown from the Peace Tower at Parliament Hill as she took the salute, inspected a Guard of Honor and watched a 21-gun salute, a fly-past and a march-past.

Great Britain's Queen Elizabeth speaks to a crowd of over 70, 000 people after she and Prince Philip arrived at Parliament Hill as guests of honor for Canada Day celebrations in Ottawa, Ontario, July 1, 2010. The royal couple are on day four of their nine day Royal Tour of Canada. UPI/Heinz Ruckemann Photo via Newscom
During her speech, which she made in both English and French she praised Canada's 'warmth and enthusiasm" and made reference to the Vancouver Olympics and the gold-medal win for Canada's hockey team.

On day five of the tour, which was meant to be her day-off, The Queen met privately with Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff at Rideau Hall. Mr Ignatieff had this to say after his meeting with her “I have to be discreet. She’s the Queen. I can’t share what she said other than to say she has a magnificent sense of humour and sense of the absurd,” he said.

Oh, if only to have been a fly on the wall...

© Marilyn Braun 2010

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