King Charles Expresses Love for ‘Strong and Free’ Canada

 Canada Prime Minister Mark Carney, left, applauds King Charles after delivering the speech from the throne in the Senate in Ottawa, Canada on Tuesday, May 27, 2025. (Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press via AP)
Canada Prime Minister Mark Carney, left, applauds King Charles after delivering the speech from the throne in the Senate in Ottawa, Canada on Tuesday, May 27, 2025. (Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press via AP)
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King Charles Expresses Love for ‘Strong and Free’ Canada

 Canada Prime Minister Mark Carney, left, applauds King Charles after delivering the speech from the throne in the Senate in Ottawa, Canada on Tuesday, May 27, 2025. (Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press via AP)
Canada Prime Minister Mark Carney, left, applauds King Charles after delivering the speech from the throne in the Senate in Ottawa, Canada on Tuesday, May 27, 2025. (Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press via AP)

King Charles, speaking during a symbolic visit to show support for Canada at a time it has faced annexation threats from US President Donald Trump, on Tuesday expressed his love for the country, which he described as "strong and free".

Charles, Canada's head of state, is the first British monarch in almost 70 years to preside over the opening of the Canadian parliament.

In a speech in the Senate, Charles referred to "the country that Canadians and I love so much" but made no direct reference to Trump, who has imposed tariffs on Canadian exports and muses about turning Canada into the 51st US state.

"The True North is indeed strong and free," Charles said, referring to the Canadian national anthem.

The speech outlining the government's plans for the next session was largely written by officials working for Prime Minister Mark Carney. But Charles was responsible for the comments about his love for Canada.

"Every time I come to Canada ... a little more of Canada seeps into my bloodstream – and from there straight to my heart," said the monarch, accompanied by his wife Queen Camilla.

Charles, who joked and laughed with Carney before the speech, wore the Order of Canada around his neck.

He and Camilla were driven to the Senate in a horse-drawn carriage, escorted by 28 riders from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and cheered on by flag-waving onlookers. Charles then inspected an honor guard, all clad in bright red uniforms.

An Ipsos Reid poll released Tuesday for Global News found that 66% of respondents believed Canada's relationship with the monarchy was useful because it helped set the nation apart from the United States, up from 54% in April 2023.

In the speech, the government reiterated its belief that Canada needs to agree a new relationship with the US and look for more reliable trading partners.

The warm welcome for the royal couple contrasted with a visit to Australia last October, when an Indigenous senator heckled Charles in Parliament House, accusing him of "genocide".

Australia has long debated the need to keep a distant monarch. A 1999 referendum in Australia on becoming a republic lost with 55% of voters opposed.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and much of his center-left Labor party support the republican cause.

The monarchy is not generally a major factor in Canadian daily life, even though coins and bank notes feature the monarch's head and the country is defended by the Royal Canadian Air Force and the Royal Canadian Navy.

A poll from the non-profit Angus Reid Institute released on Tuesday showed 83% of Canadians say they were indifferent or did not care about the monarch's historic visit.



US Republicans Grill University Leaders in Latest House Antisemitism Hearing

The US Capitol building is lit at dusk (Reuters)
The US Capitol building is lit at dusk (Reuters)
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US Republicans Grill University Leaders in Latest House Antisemitism Hearing

The US Capitol building is lit at dusk (Reuters)
The US Capitol building is lit at dusk (Reuters)

The leaders of three US universities testified before a House of Representatives panel on Tuesday about what they have done to combat antisemitism on campus, saying they were committed to stamping out hatred while protecting academic freedom.

At Tuesday's three-hour hearing, Georgetown University interim President Robert Groves, City University of New York Chancellor Felix Matos Rodriguez, and University of California, Berkeley Chancellor Richard Lyons came under sharp fire from Republicans.

Many of them echoed President Donald Trump's recent attacks on universities, which he has described as "infested with radicalism," and questioned whether the presidents were doing enough to protect Jewish students and faculty.

"The genesis of this antisemitism, this hatred that we're seeing across our country, is coming from our universities," said Representative Burgess Owens, a Utah Republican.

It was the latest in a series of hearings about antisemitism on campus in which university leaders testified before the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, which is tasked with higher education oversight.

Democrats on the panel used the session to question the Trump administration's gutting of the Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights, which probes incidents of antisemitism and other forms of discrimination. That has led to a backlog in investigations at a time when Republicans say universities are not doing enough to combat antisemitism.

The US Supreme Court on Monday cleared the way for the administration to resume dismantling the entire department, part of Trump's bid to shrink the federal role in education and give more control to the states.

Representative Mark Takano, a California Democrat, called the hearing a "kangaroo court."

"This scorched earth warfare against higher education will endanger academic freedom, innovative research and international cooperation for generations to come," Takano said, referring to the administration's efforts to cut off funding to some schools, including Harvard and Columbia, and impose other sanctions.

University leaders have come under fire from both pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian communities for their handling of protests that broke out after the 2023 attack on Israel by the Hamas group and conflict that emerged from it. On some campuses, clashes erupted between pro-Palestinian and pro-Israel demonstrators, spawning antisemitic and Islamophobic rhetoric and assaults in some cases.

During the hearing, the university leaders were repeatedly asked about their responses to antisemitic actions by faculty or affiliated scholars.

Representative Mary Miller, an Illinois Republican, asked Berkeley's Lyons about a February event in which speakers "repeatedly denied that Israeli women were gang-raped by Hamas terrorists on October 7, 2023, and argued that Israel was weaponizing feminism."

Lyons said the online event in question was organized by a faculty member but the comments that Miller cited did not come from the Berkeley faculty member. He said the school anticipated that some of the ideas discussed at the event would prove controversial.

"I did not prevent it from happening because I felt that keeping the marketplace for ideas open was really important in this instance," he said.

Previous hearings held by the panel have led to significant consequences for university presidents.

In December 2023, Representative Elise Stefanik, a New York Republican, raised her own political profile by grilling the presidents of Harvard, University of Pennsylvania and Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

She asked them whether "calling for the genocide of Jews" would violate their schools' codes of conduct related to bullying and harassment. Each president declined to give a simple "yes" or "no" answer, noting that a wide range of hateful speech is protected under the US Constitution's First Amendment and under university policies.

Their testimony, which many viewed as insensitive and detached, triggered an outcry. More than 70 US lawmakers later signed a letter demanding that the governing boards of the three universities remove the presidents. Soon afterwards, Harvard's Claudine Gay and Penn's Liz Magill resigned.

Columbia President Minouche Shafik resigned in August, following her April testimony before the committee.