Trudeau to meet with Queen and Irish PM during visit to Europe
0 Justin Trudeau will hold a private meeting with the Queen as part of his visit to Scotland The Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau, will fly into Scotland next week to meet the Queen in Edinburgh.
The 45-year-old will have a private meeting with the monarch at the Palace of Holyroodhouse on Wednesday.
The visit coincides with Canada’s 150th anniversary celebrations of Confederation, which united its various provinces into one nation.
It is expected the meeting will reflect on Britain’s longstanding ties with Canada, as well as looking to the future.
It will be the first time Mr Trudeau has visited Scotland since being elected as the second youngest prime minister in Canada’s history in 2015.
According to his office, his meeting with the Queen will “honour her importance to Canada’s history and to thank her for her continued dedication to Canada”.
Mr Trudeau said: “Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II’S commitment to public service has long inspired me and many other Canadians.
“With this year marking the 150th anniversary of Confederation, I look forward to thanking her personally for her dedication to our country and for carrying out her duties with such grace and strength.”
The meeting will be Mr Trudeau’s second private audience with the Queen as prime minister. He met her at Buckingham Palace in November 2015 shortly after he took up office. As a child, he met her in the 1970s, during the period his father, Pierre Trudeau, was prime minister.
In common with 4.7 million of his compatriots who claim Scottish ancestry, Mr Trudeau, the leader of the Liberal Party of Canada, has historic ties with this nation thanks to his own family.
His maternal grandfather, James “Jimmy” Sinclair, emigrated from Banff in Aberdeenshire to Vancouver in 1911, and went on to serve as a Liberal MP.
Mr Trudeau will visit Scotland after meeting Irish Taoiseach Leo Varadkar for the first time on Tuesday, with the Canada-european Union trade deal among the topics on the agenda.
Mr Trudeau’s office said his visit to the Republic of Ireland and the UK will “serve to recognise the strong family ties, history and common purpose our countries share”.
Later in the week, he will attend the G20 summit, which is being held in Hamburg on 7 and 8 July.
Mr Trudeau’s visit to Edinburgh comes just weeks after former US president Barack Obama made a visit to Scotland, where he gave a speech at a charity dinner in Edinburgh after playing a round of golf at St Andrews.