Memorable Quotations about Canada's Monarchy

Until this day ninety years ago, Vimy Ridge had been impregnable, a lesson learned at terrible cost to the armies of France and Britain. For the Allies, this ridge had become a symbol of futility and despair. It was against this forbidding challenge that the four Divisions of the Canadian Corps were brought together as a single army for the first time.

En l’espace de quelques heures, en ce matin froid et maussade du lundi de Pâques, les Canadiens devinrent maîtres de la crête, réussissant ce que nombreux avaient cru impossible. Leur victoire fut le fruit non seulement d’un ingénieux plan de bataille élaboré par les commandants canadiens, mais surtout du courage et de la détermination avec lesquelles les soldats canadiens exécutèrent leur mission.

No fewer than four Canadians were awarded the Victoria Cross for conspicuous bravery during the battle, though it could easily be said that every soldier in the field demonstrated conspicuous bravery, such was the verve of the Canadian attack. It was a stunning victory. More, in capturing this formidable objective, the Canadian Corps transformed Vimy Ridge from a symbol of despair into a source of inspiration. After two and a half years of deadly stalemate, it now seemed possible that the Allies would prevail and peace might one day be restored.

Ici, en cette terre sacrée par le sacrifice de tant, nous commémorons leur courage et leur exploit. Leur victoire fit davantage que de donner l’espoir; elle permit au Canada, qui le méritait tant, d’occuper sa place sur la scène internationale à titre de fière nation souveraine, forte et libre. Le Monument commémoratif du Canada à Vimy témoigne de la grande force du Canada et de son attachement à la liberté. Il témoigne aussi de la profonde solidarité qui lie le Canada et la France. En dernier lieu, il témoigne surtout de la vaillance, du courage et du sacrifice des braves Canadiens qui ont inspiré un jeune pays à devenir une magnifique nation.

To their eternal remembrance, to Canada, to all who would serve the cause of freedom, and to those who have lost their lives in Afghanistan, I rededicate this magnificently restored memorial.

The sixtieth anniversary of the Normandy landings is a moment for thanksgiving, and a moment of commemoration. Today we honour all those who gave their lives in this campaign, and all of you who fought in this great struggle. I know that present and future generations join me in thanking all Canadians who took part in this great venture. On this anniversary day, I join all your countrymen and allies in saluting you, the heroes and veterans of a historic campaign.

During a previous visit 32 years ago I said that […] I want the Crown in Canada to represent everything that is best and most admired in the Canadian ideal. I will continue to do my best to make it so during my lifetime, and I hope you will all continue to give me your help in this task. I would like to repeat those words today as, together, we continue to build a country that remains the envy of the world.

[…]whether watching a chuck wagon race at the Calgary Stampede or athletic prowess at the Montréal Olympics, whether listening to an Inuit song of greeting in Nunavut or the skirl of pipes in Nova Scotia, I have always felt not only welcome but at home in Canada…I have so many vivid memories and a tremendous sense of pride in being part of the Canadian family. This is a relationship I have come to treasure and a country for which I have a deep and abiding affection[….] Your enduring ties to the Crown stand not only for a respect for heritage, but also for the principles of peace, order and good government developed by the Fathers of Confederation who envisaged and worked so diligently to make this country a reality.

When we were last here in 1987, I spoke of the Crown in the daily life of Canada, of my role as your Queen and my bond with this land and its people...Premier, you have noted the role of the Crown as a symbol of national identity for Canada and Saskatchewan. To others, one of the strongest and most valued assets of the Crown is the stability and continuity it can bring from the past into the present. My mother once said that this country felt like a home away from home for the Queen of Canada. Ladies and gentlemen, six decades later it still does[…] and it is good to be back.

This stone was taken from the grounds of Balmoral Castle in the Highlands of Scotland—a place dear to my great great grandmother, Queen Victoria. It symbolizes the foundation of the rights of First Nations peoples reflected in treaties signed with the Crown during her reign.

Bearing the cipher of Queen Victoria as well as my own, this stone is presented to the First Nations University of Canada in the hope that it will serve as a reminder of the special relationship between the Sovereign and all First Nations peoples.

I am proud to be the first member of the Canadian Royal Family to be greeted in Canada’s newest territory.

I treasure my place in the life of Canada, and my bond with Canadians everywhere [….] It is my privilege to serve you as Queen of Canada to the best of my ability, to play my part in the Canadian identity, to uphold Canadian traditions and heritage, to recognize Canadian excellence and achievement and to seek to give a sense of continuity in these exciting, ever-changing times in which we are fortunate enough to live.

It was no coincidence that when I launched the Buckingham Palace website on the internet this year, the link I used was to students in Ontario. It was because Canadians seem to have this natural aptitude for technological wizardry that they were the natural choice.

The people of the North hold a special place in our memories and in our hearts.

It is fitting that here, in the nation’s capital, and before its parliament buildings, we should celebrate this anniversary. I am reminded that I spoke, when I was here last, of the way in which that Canada Day united Sovereign, Parliament and people. Today, as Canadians are working to modernize and improve the Constitution, this unity of its three elements is yet more significant.

You have inherited a country uniquely worth preserving. I call on you all to cherish this inheritance and protect it with all your strength.

Our ceremony today brings together Sovereign, Parliament and people—the three parts of constitutional monarchy. That is a system in which those who represent the community come together and remain together, rather than dwelling on differences which might further divide them.

I am and members of my family have been with you on many special days in the life of this country. I particularly recall another July 1st in Canada’s centennial year, here on Parliament Hill. I said then, and I repeat it today, that Canada is a country that has been blessed beyond most countries in the world. It is a country worth working for [….] I am not just a fair weather friend, and I am glad to be here at this sensitive time. I hope my presence may call to mind those many years of shared experience, and raise new hopes for the future. The unity of the Canadian people was the paramount issue in 1867, as it is today. There is no force except the force of will to keep Canadians together [….] I cannot believe that Canadians will not find a way through present difficulties [….]

Parliamentary democracy has fostered tolerance and flexibility—a good balance between individual rights and collective responsibilities. And this is because the constitutional monarchy has always placed the emphasis on people in community—as it were, a national family with the Sovereign as its head.

I am going home to Canada tomorrow.

Today I have proclaimed this new constitution [….] There could be no better moment for me, as Queen of Canada, to declare again my unbounded confidence in the future of this wonderful country.

I am getting to know our country rather well.

I dedicate myself anew to the people and the nation I am proud to serve.

My family’s association with this country over many generations allows me to see and to appreciate Canada from another viewpoint, that of history.

I want the Crown to be seen as a symbol of national sovereignty belonging to all. It is not only a link between Commonwealth nations, but between Canadian citizens of every national origin and ancestry [….] I want the Crown in Canada to represent everything that is best and most admired in the Canadian ideal. I will continue to make it so during my lifetime. I hope you will all continue to give me your help in this task.

Canada asks no citizens to deny their forebears, to forsake their inheritance—only that each should accept and value the cultural freedom of others as he enjoys his own. It is a gentle invitation, this call to citizenship [….]

Canadian unity is not uniformity.

Thank you for being just the way you are.

Industry and commerce may bring wealth to a country, but the character of a nation is formed by other factors. Race, language, religion, culture and tradition all have some contribution to make, and when I think of the diversity of these factors in Canada today and the achievements that have grown from their union, I feel proud and happy to be Queen of such a nation.

As I now address you here for the first time, I will call to your memory the words of the earlier Elizabeth, when, more than three centuries ago, she spoke from her heart, to the Speaker and members of her last Parliament and said: Though God hath raised me high, yet this I count to the glory of my Crown—that I have reigned with your loves. Now, here in the New World, I say to you that it is my wish that in the years before me I may so reign in Canada and be so remembered.

From the moment when I first set foot on Canadian soil, the feeling of strangeness went, for I knew myself to be not only amongst friends, but amongst fellow countrymen.