Monarchy in Canada - Canadian Royal Family

The Canadian Royal Family is shared with other countries. For information on the Royal Family in those regions, see Commonwealth realm > Royal family.

The Canadian Royal Family is a group of people related to the monarch of Canada. There is no strict legal or formal definition of who is or is not a member of the group, though the Department of Canadian Heritage maintains a list of immediate members and the Department of National Defence stipulates that those in the direct line of succession who bear the style of Royal Highness (Altesse Royale) are subjects of, and owe their allegiance to, the reigning sovereign specifically as king or queen of Canada. This entitles them to Canadian consular assistance and to the protection of the Queen's armed forces of Canada when they are outside of the Commonwealth realms and in need of protection or aid.

Given the shared nature of the Canadian monarch, most members of the Canadian Royal Family are also members of the British Royal Family, and thus the House of Windsor. As such, they are the distant relations of the Belgian, Danish, Greek, Norwegian, Spanish, and Swedish Royal Families, and bear lineage from, amongst others, Arab, Armenian, Cuman, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Mongolian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Serbian, and Swedish ethnicities, as well as, according to Moroccan and Chinese officials, respectively, being directly descended from the Prophet Muhammad and Tang Dynasty Chinese Emperors. However, because Canada and the UK are independent of one another, it is incorrect to refer in the Canadian context to the family of the monarch as the "British Royal Family"—as is frequently done by Canadian and other media—and there exist some differences between the official lists of each: for instance, while he never held the style His Royal Highness, Angus Ogilvy was included in the Department of Canadian Heritage's royal family list, but was not considered a member of the British Royal Family. Additionally, unlike in the United Kingdom, the monarch is the only member of the Royal Family in Canada with a title established through law; it would be possible for others to be granted distinctly Canadian titles (as is the case for the Duke of Rothesay in Scotland), but they have always been, and continue to only be, accorded the use of a courtesy title, which is that they have been granted via letters patent in the United Kingdom, though they are also in Canada translated to French.

Though the group is predominantly based in the United Kingdom, the sovereign and those amongst her relations who do not meet the requirements of Canadian citizenship law are still considered Canadian; as early as 1959, it was recognized that the Queen was "equally at home in all her realms." Rather, as legal subjects of the country's monarch, the Royal Family holds a unique position reflected in the confusion that sometimes arises around the awarding of honours to them. There are four Canadian citizens within the Canadian Royal Family: Two married into it: In 1988, Sylvana Jones (née Tomaselli in Placentia, Newfoundland) wed the Earl of St. Andrews, a great-grandson of King George V, and, on 18 May 2008, Autumn Kelly, originally from Montreal, married Queen Elizabeth II's eldest grandson, Peter Phillips. The latter couple has two children, 12th and 13th in line to the throne, who each hold dual Canadian and British citizenship. Beyond legalities, members of the Royal Family have also, on occasion, declared themselves to be Canadian, and some past members have lived in Canada for extended periods as viceroy or for other reasons. Still, the existence of a Canadian Royal Family is contested, mostly by individuals in Canada's republican movement, but also by former Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia Iona Campagnolo. Poet George Elliott Clarke publicly mused about a fully First Nations royal family for Canada.

According to the Canadian Royal Heritage Trust, Prince Edward Augustus, Duke of Kent and Strathearn—due to his having lived in Canada between 1791 and 1800, and fathering Queen Victoria—is the "ancestor of the modern Canadian Royal Family." Nonetheless, the concept of the Canadian Royal Family did not emerge until after the passage of the Statute of Westminster in 1931, when Canadian officials only began to overtly consider putting the principles of Canada's new status as an independent kingdom into effect. At first, the monarch was the only member of the Royal Family to carry out public ceremonial duties solely on the advice of Canadian ministers; King Edward VIII became the first to do so when in July 1936 he dedicated the Canadian National Vimy Memorial in France—one of his few obligations performed during his short reign. Over the decades, however, the monarch's children, grandchildren, cousins, and their respective spouses began to also perform functions at the direction of the Canadian Crown-in-Council, representing the monarch within Canada or abroad. By the 1960s, loyal societies in Canada recognized the Queen's cousin, Princess Alexandra, The Honourable Lady Ogilvy, as a "Canadian princess"; but, it was not until October 2002 when the term Canadian Royal Family was first used publicly and officially by one of its members: in a speech to the Nunavut legislature at its opening, Queen Elizabeth II stated: "I am proud to be the first member of the Canadian Royal Family to be greeted in Canada's newest territory." At the time of the 2011 royal tour of Prince William, Duke of Cambridge, and Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, both Michael Valpy, writing for the CBC, and The Globe and Mail referred to William as "a prince of Canada" and both Canadian and British media were referring to "Canada's royal family" or the "Canadian royal family".

The press frequently follows the movements of the Royal Family, and can, at times, affect the group's popularity, which has fluctuated over the years. Mirroring the mood in the United Kingdom, the family's lowest approval was during the mid-1980s to 1990s, when the children of the monarch were enduring their divorces and were the targets of negative tabloid reporting.