King Charles’s visit brings frustration for First Nations amid ‘backslide in reconciliation’

Spectacle of royal visit evoked a model of national identity at odds with efforts to confront Canada's own violent history of colonization

King Charles's speech to Canada's parliament this week was framed as a subtle rebuke to Donald Trump's threats of annexation and an assertion of the country's sovereignty.

But for many Indigenous people, the elaborate spectacle of the royal visit - with its protocol, regalia, thrones and mounties in pith helmets - evoked a model of national identity at odds with ongoing efforts to confront Canada's own violent history of colonization and dispossession.