On the lookout in London

With the upswing in visitors from Russia and China, Canadian tourists seem to be as scarce as royal babies

The plan was simple. Or so I thought.

I would head out Tuesday morning to a couple of familiar landmarks where I would quickly find a few of the tens of thousands of Canadian tourists now in Britain and ask them their thoughts on the eve of the birth of a royal baby who will one day be Canada’s sovereign.

Five hours later I was still searching for my first authentic visitor from the country that I grew up calling the Dominion of Canada.

I began my hunt across from Canada Gate in front of Buckingham Palace’s impressive black grille fence. There were plenty of sunburned Americans, loud French schoolchildren and London’s newest favourite tourists, the free-spending mainland Chinese. But not a single Canadian to be found to comment on a birth that has been expected for days and which Prince Charles’ wife, Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall, has told the BBC, Prince William and Kate Middleton’s new prince or princess will likely arrive “by the end of the week.”

Figuring that my odds of meeting Canadians would be better at Canada House, I walked down the Mall and through Admiralty Gate to the former High Commission on Trafalgar Square. My parents had many fine memories of the place from the war. The massive grey mansion and the equally dominating British lions and Nelson’s Column in the square, were the principal rendezvous points for Canadian men and women in uniform during the long buildup to D-Day.

Canada House was a fantastically welcoming place during my first trip to London in 1970. The reading room was packed with folks from home reading their local newspapers or listening to the CBC News on a static-filled line. In those days it was also still possible to pick up mail from the Poste Restante that the diplomatic corps ran for their visiting countrymen.

As I stood outside a tiny but pleasant exhibition of Inuit art at Canada House, I was reminded that the Canadian government was no longer interested in meeting Canadians in London any more. Although it may be the most impressive piece of real estate that Ottawa owns anywhere overseas, most of Canada House has been shuttered for years, with perennial promises that it will eventually be restored to a bit of its former glory and importance.

A couple of Brits, a French family, a Vietnamese woman living in Paris and her chum from Italy briefly dropped by to admire several magnificent soapstone carvings. But over the course of an hour not a single Canadian appeared.

The affable Moroccan guarding the door told me that if only I had come on Canada Day, I would have been able to meet lots of my compatriots.

At one time Canadians were the easiest tourists of all to spot. That so many of them plastered themselves and their luggage with maple leaf images became a bit of a cliché. But that practice went out of fashion some time ago.

There were many tourists lolling around Tuesday in Trafalgar Square. But in three circuits of that iconic meeting place, not a single maple leaf was to be seen.

Part of the reason is that Canada’s footprint in Britain has been diminishing rapidly. Or rather, it is not growing at a time when the country is awash with Western Europeans, well-heeled Russians and Arabs and a crush of Asian tourists. Canadians visiting Britain were second fiddle to the Americans for decades, now they are second

‘We walked past the media tents set up by Buckingham Palace. To tell you the truth we weren’t terribly interested.’ JOHN CAMPBELL Albertan visiting London

fiddle to the world.

And while Canada has royal connections the others don’t have, its citizens are getting lost in Britain’s tourist shuffle.

I could have called a few of the many Canadians I know who live in London and asked them about the royal baby. But that would have felt like cheating.

What I finally did was not much better. I made my first visit to the Maple Leaf Bar, which is a five-minute walk east of Trafalgar Square between Covent Garden and the Strand.

The woman working the beer pump was from one of the commuter towns that hug Lake Ontario near Toronto. She seemed game to talk about the royals.

But she explained that she was sort of damaged goods as she had already spoken to another Canadian journalist about the royal baby. Nor did she lift my spirits when she told me that I had missed by five seconds a fellow from Calgary.

Waiting for another Canadian to materialize in what turned out to be a Britishowned pub, I tried some of the poutine. It turned out to be a fraud made with Parmesan rather than cheese curd and the fries could only be doused with British malt vinegar rather than the white vinegar favoured by Canadians.

Six hours into the chase my salvation finally came when the Campbell clan wandered into the bar for a beverage and lunch. The patriarch, John, was celebrating his 60th birthday and his retirement from a school in Grande Prairie, in Alberta’s Peace River Country.

“We walked past the media tents set up by Buckingham Palace. To tell you the truth we weren’t terribly interested,” said the former vice-principal, who emigrated from Britain to Canada as a child and has been a Canadian citizen for 52 years.

“But I am a monarchist,” he added.

“Anti-monarchist sentiment had been growing in Canada until Will and Kate got married. Because of them the royal family is much more accepted again.”

As for the new royal heir, the Albertan wished the little prince or princess well.