There were red-jacketed Royal Canadian Mounted Police and crowds of schoolchildren to meet the King and Queen, with an accompanying band playing tea dance music. The King and Queen, on their first visit to Canada since the start of their reign, will go on to a community festival, before a formal meeting with Prime Minister Carney. The King is following in the footsteps of his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, who delivered the speech in 1977 and opened Canada's Parliament in 1957. This royal visit will be something of a diplomatic balancing act. Ahead of the visit, a royal source said: "The King has long experience and great skill in walking that diplomatic tightrope.