Meghan, the wife of Prince Harry, has gone back to Canada to be with their son after the couple provoked a rift with the Royal Family by unexpectedly announcing they would be stepping back from their roles and would spend more time in North America.
Queen Elizabeth and other senior royals were trying to calm the crisis by thrashing out a plan for Harry and Meghan after the couple blindsided the family by going public with their announcement without consultation.
The couple spent six weeks in Canada at the end of last year before returning to England, and their first official engagement of 2020 was to visit Canada House to say thank you for what they said had been an “unbelievable” welcome.
Their baby son, Archie, remained in Canada as Harry and Meghan returned to announce earlier this week that they would step back from royal duties and build a more “progressive” role for themselves.
Meghan has now returned to Canada to be with her son, a spokesperson said.
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Queen, Prince Charles not consulted
The couple — formally the Duke and Duchess of Sussex — said they had been reflecting for months before making the decision, which would see them divide their time between the United Kingdom and North America to allow them and Archie the space they needed.
They also said they intended to become financially independent.
Royal superfan John Loughery holds a copy of a British newspaper outside Buckingham Palace in London on Thursday, following the Harry and Megan’s announcement. A YouGov poll of 1,327 Britons found that 45 per cent supported the couple’s decision to step away from royal life. (Tolga Akmen/AFP/Getty Images)
The couple, who spoke of their struggles dealing with the intense media attention in a TV interview last October, revealed their decision to step back from royal duties via a media statement and a post on Instagram, leaving senior Royals hurt and disappointed.
Discussions over their future had only been at a preliminary stage, and neither the Queen nor Prince Charles — Harry’s father and heir to the throne — were consulted on the release of their statement or its contents, a royal source said.
As the crisis engulfed the Windsors, aides who work for the Queen, Charles and Harry’s elder brother William were trying to find a solution.
The royal source said it was hoped a successful outcome would take “days not weeks.”
‘Crisis talks’
“Queen fights to save monarchy,” the U.K. Daily Mirror said on its front page, while the Sun tabloid spoke of “Crisis talks after couple defied Queen.”
While other members of the Royal Family have had paying jobs, it was not immediately clear how Harry, 35 and sixth in line to the throne, and Meghan, 38, could become what royal biographers said was effectively “half-royal” — and who would pay for their transatlantic lifestyles.
At the moment, nearly all of their income is provided by Charles’s Duchy of Cornwall estate, although the cost of their security, estimated by newspapers to be hundreds of thousands of pounds a year, is currently met by the U.K. government.
Queen Elizabeth was trying to calm the crisis by thrashing out a plan for Harry and Meghan after the couple blindsided the family by going public with their announcement without consultation. (Stephen Pond/Getty Images)
The Times newspaper said Charles might cut off their funding if they moved away from royal duties altogether, although public relations experts said they could use their global fame to make large sums through public speaking, endorsements or their own TV production company.
Six months ago Harry and Meghan applied to the U.K. Intellectual Property Office to trademark the phrases Sussex Royal and Sussex Royal Foundation for items ranging from books and charity campaigns to pyjamas and socks.
“The monarchy needs to be asked serious questions about what they’re up to, it’s not good enough to be told to wait for clarification or to be left reading the tea leaves to work out what their intentions are,” said Graham Smith, from campaign group Republic, which wants to abolish the monarchy.
A YouGov poll of 1,327 Britons found that 45 per cent supported the couple’s decision to step away from royal life, but 63 per cent believed their Duchy of Cornwall funding should end.
VANCOUVER – Contract negotiations resume today in Vancouver in a labour dispute that has paralyzed container cargo shipping at British Columbia’s ports since Monday.
The BC Maritime Employers Association and International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 514 are scheduled to meet for the next three days in mediated talks to try to break a deadlock in negotiations.
The union, which represents more than 700 longshore supervisors at ports, including Vancouver, Prince Rupert and Nanaimo, has been without a contract since March last year.
The latest talks come after employers locked out workers in response to what it said was “strike activity” by union members.
The start of the lockout was then followed by several days of no engagement between the two parties, prompting federal Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon to speak with leaders on both sides, asking them to restart talks.
MacKinnon had said that the talks were “progressing at an insufficient pace, indicating a concerning absence of urgency from the parties involved” — a sentiment echoed by several business groups across Canada.
In a joint letter, more than 100 organizations, including the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, Business Council of Canada and associations representing industries from automotive and fertilizer to retail and mining, urged the government to do whatever it takes to end the work stoppage.
“While we acknowledge efforts to continue with mediation, parties have not been able to come to a negotiated agreement,” the letter says. “So, the federal government must take decisive action, using every tool at its disposal to resolve this dispute and limit the damage caused by this disruption.
“We simply cannot afford to once again put Canadian businesses at risk, which in turn puts Canadian livelihoods at risk.”
In the meantime, the union says it has filed a complaint to the Canada Industrial Relations Board against the employers, alleging the association threatened to pull existing conditions out of the last contract in direct contact with its members.
“The BCMEA is trying to undermine the union by attempting to turn members against its democratically elected leadership and bargaining committee — despite the fact that the BCMEA knows full well we received a 96 per cent mandate to take job action if needed,” union president Frank Morena said in a statement.
The employers have responded by calling the complaint “another meritless claim,” adding the final offer to the union that includes a 19.2 per cent wage increase over a four-year term remains on the table.
“The final offer has been on the table for over a week and represents a fair and balanced proposal for employees, and if accepted would end this dispute,” the employers’ statement says. “The offer does not require any concessions from the union.”
The union says the offer does not address the key issue of staffing requirement at the terminals as the port introduces more automation to cargo loading and unloading, which could potentially require fewer workers to operate than older systems.
The Port of Vancouver is the largest in Canada and has seen a number of labour disruptions, including two instances involving the rail and grain storage sectors earlier this year.
A 13-day strike by another group of workers at the port last year resulted in the disruption of a significant amount of shipping and trade.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
The Royal Canadian Legion says a new partnership with e-commerce giant Amazon is helping boost its veterans’ fund, and will hopefully expand its donor base in the digital world.
Since the Oct. 25 launch of its Amazon.ca storefront, the legion says it has received nearly 10,000 orders for poppies.
Online shoppers can order lapel poppies on Amazon in exchange for donations or buy items such as “We Remember” lawn signs, Remembrance Day pins and other accessories, with all proceeds going to the legion’s Poppy Trust Fund for Canadian veterans and their families.
Nujma Bond, the legion’s national spokesperson, said the organization sees this move as keeping up with modern purchasing habits.
“As the world around us evolves we have been looking at different ways to distribute poppies and to make it easier for people to access them,” she said in an interview.
“This is definitely a way to reach a wider number of Canadians of all ages. And certainly younger Canadians are much more active on the web, on social media in general, so we’re also engaging in that way.”
Al Plume, a member of a legion branch in Trenton, Ont., said the online store can also help with outreach to veterans who are far from home.
“For veterans that are overseas and are away, (or) can’t get to a store they can order them online, it’s Amazon.” Plume said.
Plume spent 35 years in the military with the Royal Engineers, and retired eight years ago. He said making sure veterans are looked after is his passion.
“I’ve seen the struggles that our veterans have had with Veterans Affairs … and that’s why I got involved, with making sure that the people get to them and help the veterans with their paperwork.”
But the message about the Amazon storefront didn’t appear to reach all of the legion’s locations, with volunteers at Branch 179 on Vancouver’s Commercial Drive saying they hadn’t heard about the online push.
Holly Paddon, the branch’s poppy campaign co-ordinator and bartender, said the Amazon partnership never came up in meetings with other legion volunteers and officials.
“I work at the legion, I work with the Vancouver poppy office and I go to the meetings for the Vancouver poppy campaign — which includes all the legions in Vancouver — and not once has this been mentioned,” she said.
Paddon said the initiative is a great idea, but she would like to have known more about it.
The legion also sells a larger collection of items at poppystore.ca.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
