King Charles will not travel to Canada for his first royal tour as Canada’s monarch this year as he battles cancer.
British media reported in December that Buckingham Palace was beginning plans for a visit to Canada by King and Queen Camilla next May.
This information was never confirmed by either the palace or the Canadian government, and the visit was never officially announced.
Canadian Heritage and the Prime Minister’s Office both said today that no royal visit was planned, but neither confirmed whether that had changed in the past week.
A week ago, the palace said the king had received an undisclosed cancer diagnosis.
May will mark the first anniversary of the King’s official coronation following the death of his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, in September 2022. King Charles is 75 years old.
His cancer diagnosis followed a brief stay in hospital at the end of January for treatment of an enlarged prostate.
An official statement released by Buckingham Palace on February 5 clarified that cancer was “a separate matter of concern” which arose during this hospitalization and for which the king underwent tests.
The palace did not confirm what type of cancer the king has, but said it would cancel “his duties to the public” while he undergoes treatment.
The lack of details about the diagnosis and the quick trip to London last week by King Charles’s youngest son, Prince Harry, has sparked concern among many royal watchers about the seriousness of the diagnosis.
Prince Harry retired from the royal family in 2000 and now lives in California with his wife, Meghan Markle. He flew to London from Los Angeles for only about 24 hours and paid a brief visit to his father.
The couple are expected to travel to Vancouver and Whistler, British Columbia, later this week for an event to mark the start of the one-year countdown to the Invictus Games in 2025.
King Charles has already made 16 official visits to Canada, but all of them took place when he was Prince of Wales, before ascending the throne.
His last visit was in May 2022 with his wife, Queen Camilla, then Duchess of Cornwall.
They spent three days in Canada with stops in St. John’s, Ottawa and the Northwest Territories.
Since becoming king, Charles has made only five trips abroad: to Germany, Romania, France, Kenya and the United Arab Emirates.
During her 70-year reign, Queen Elizabeth visited Canada 22 times, but her first official visit as queen did not come until five years after she ascended the throne.
British media also recently reported that King Charles was due to travel to Samoa for a meeting of Commonwealth heads of government in October. The trip would also include stops in Australia and New Zealand.