Once the Duke and Duchess of Sussex step down as full-time Royals next month, Canada plans to stop paying to protect the couple, announced the country’s public safety minister.
This begs the question of who will shoulder the roughly £20($26) million annual security bill.
After Megxit happens at the end of March, both Prince Harry and Meghan Markle will likely live in North America. Canadian authories initially said they would share the security bill with the British Metropolitan Police, with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau himself assuring the Queen that Harry and Meghan would be kept safe while they were in Canada.
But now, the Office of the Minister of Public safety said that Canada only provided security because they had to since the royals were “internationally protected” people. But once that status changed, so would the security arrangement.
The ministry’s statement read: “The Duke and Duchess of Sussex choosing to relocate to Canada on a part-time basis presented our government with a unique and unprecedented set of circumstances.
“The RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police) has been engaged with officials in the UK from the very beginning regarding security considerations.
“As the Duke and Duchess are currently recognized as Internationally Protected Persons, Canada has an obligation to provide security assistance on an as-needed basis.
“At the request of the Metropolitan Police, the RCMP has been providing assistance to the Met since the arrival of the Duke and Duchess to Canada intermittently since November 2019.
“The assistance will cease in the coming weeks, in keeping with their change in status.”
But this only brought up the question of whether the couple would now have to foot the bill on their own or if British taxpayers will be left with the tab.
Both Buckingham Palace and Scotland Yard declined to comment, saying “we don’t discuss matters of security.”
Security for the couple is estimated at £20 million a year.
Trudeau said in January that negotiations regarding the couple’s arrangement in Canada had “not really” involved the government. But he did say any details would be confidential.
The Queen was also assured that the couple would be safe while in Canada with the government paying roughly half the annual cost of security.
But recent weeks have only ramped up the tensions about who would really end up footing the bill.
The Canadian Taxpayers Federation already submitted a petition with 80,000 signatures to the Prime Minister’s Office asking that Canadian taxpayer money not be used for Harry and Meghan.
The couple steps down from the British Monarchy on March 31.
Dai Davies, who led the Met’s royalty protection unit, said: “It’s the first time in 300 years of royalty protection that anyone has ever done this to a member of the Royal Family.
“There are two options now for them and us: that the Met will carry on guarding them and footing the bill, which is unacceptable to many, or they agree a system where they make a contribution to the costs personally.
“But their statement doesn’t seem to suggest they would wish to do that. With budgets straining at the moment, this is a huge problem that the Met will have to get a grip on and quickly.”
As members of the Royal Family, Harry and Meghan are entitled to 24/7 protection at home or abroad whether they are performing official duties or on holiday, all funded by taxpayers.
The couple believe this practice should continue but Scotland Yard has hinted, privately, that they should not have an open-ended check for 24/7 security if they are living abroad.
Former Home Office minister Normal Baker asked the Met Police to set the annual expenditure on security to its 2019 level. Anything above that should be answered by the couple or the Queen and Prince of Wales.
Royal author Phil Dampier said: “The cost of security was always going to be a major problem for Harry and Meghan and it doesn’t surprise me that the bill seems to be going up and up.
“The travelling they do around North America is going to put an immense strain on resources as both they and their son Archie need to be protected 24/7 and Scotland Yard detectives will tend to work shifts of two weeks on two weeks off.
“If you add the costs of them having to travel to and from the UK for leave it could spiral out of control and become absolutely ridiculous. So in the long term I don’t think it is sustainable.”
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