Good morning,
Queen Elizabeth’s funeral is underway at Westminster Abbey, where 2,000 mourners have gathered.
Shortly before 11 a.m. local time (6 a.m. ET), the Queen’s oak coffin emerged under overcast skies to be taken by military procession to Westminster Abbey.
Her son and heir King Charles and other senior royals walked behind as a bell tolled in the background. Tens of thousands of people lining the streets looked on as bagpipes skirled.
The queen’s coffin was draped with the royal standard and a wreath of flowers including blooms and foliage cut from the gardens of Buckingham Palace and Clarence House at Charles’s request. They include rosemary for remembrance, and myrtle cut from a plant that was grown from a sprig of myrtle in the queen’s wedding bouquet in 1947.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Governor-General Mary Simon and actor Sandra Oh are among the 19 delegates who will represent Canada.
On the surface, the Queen’s funeral is a solemn and apolitical event that millions are watching. But it’s also a geopolitical phenomenon in which most of the world’s leaders are gathered in close proximity, promising to make it an international diplomatic event on the scale of a major summit meeting, writes Doug Saunders.
For organizers, the funeral and the participation of so many dignitaries has been a logistical challenge. London’s Metropolitan Police said it enlisted 10,000 officers to patrol the streets in what the Met has called the biggest security operation in its history.
Read more:
- How three of Canada’s delegates prepared for Queen Elizabeth’s funeral
- ‘I’ve never forgotten’: Globe readers share their experiences meeting the Queen
- Six royal funerals, one changing Canada: What the deaths of monarchs have revealed about us
- Jennifer Robson: The Queen of our dreams
Queen Elizabeth's coffin is carried at Westminster Abbey in London, September 19, 2022.PHIL NOBLE/Reuters
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Afghans stranded in Pakistan and running out of money plead for Ottawa to speed up their approvals
Wahid Ibrahimi was a security guard at the Canadian embassy in Kabul. After the Taliban took control, forcing the embassy’s closing and putting him and other Afghans who worked there in danger of retaliation, he still had some hope: Ottawa had created a program to help its Afghan former employees and their families escape to Canada.
But in June, still waiting for Ottawa to respond to his request for resettlement, he, along with his wife, seven children, brother and aging mother, fled to Pakistan, where they have been living in a cramped one-room apartment in Islamabad. They can’t afford to buy meat and are surviving on two servings each of vegetables and rice a day.
The federal government promised to admit 40,000 Afghans to Canada after the Taliban takeover. Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada now says 18,540 Afghans have arrived since August, 2021.
Ukrainian family mourns death of 11-year-old daughter after a Russian missile destroys home
Anastasiya Hrytsenko stayed home alone on Saturday morning, while her parents went out to buy some food that they planned to deliver to poorer neighbours. There was a kitten that liked to visit their yard, and the 11-year-old wanted to play with it.
Around lunchtime, a Russian S-300 missile smashed into the Hrytsenko family’s brick bungalow in this working-class city in Eastern Ukraine. Within an hour, Anastasiya was dead. At the scene of the attack, the only traces of the fourth grader’s life on Saturday were a purple Sofia The First notebook – filled with cheerful doodles and homework done in flowery handwriting – and a pair of deflated soccer balls amid the rain-soaked wreckage of No. 2 Bohdan Khmelnytsky Street, writes Mark MacKinnon.
Anastasiya is one of at least 376 Ukrainian children killed since the start of Russia’s invasion, according to the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. The OHCHR says the figure is almost certainly a dramatic undercount since it’s not known how many children have died in areas that are near the front line, or under Russian occupation.
- Russian shelling near Ukrainian nuclear power plant causes alarm
- City of Izyum, freed from Russia’s information vacuum, is bewildered by Ukrainian forces’ Kharkiv comeback
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Also on our radar
PM declines to say if asylum granted to CSIS informant after prison release: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau suggested, however, that Canada’s spy agency would not have been allowed to run a double agent who engaged in the smuggling of minors under new rules brought in by his government in 2017.
In Taiwan, fear of Chinese invasion sparks fresh interest in self-defence: Taipei, for decades, has lived under the threat of invasion. But 2022 has made the threat loom larger in the face of Russia’s attempt to subdue neighbouring Ukraine and China’s increasing menacing of Taiwan.
Inflation, cost-of-living issues set to dominate as Parliament returns: The House of Commons resumes regular sittings Tuesday for the first time since June, and each party is arriving with different prescriptions for tackling Canada’s affordability pressures.
- Why bananas have avoided inflation – so far
Girls Who Fish program wants more women on the water: The program in Newfoundland and Labrador has inspired a sister program in Japan, where girls and women learn about a male-dominated industry and gain the practical skills needed to change that – all while catching a few fish.
Morning markets
Stocks struggle: World shares slipped and the U.S. dollar firmed on Monday as investors prepared for a packed week of central bank meetings which will see borrowing costs rise globally, with the chance of a super-sized hike in the United States. Around 5:30 a.m. ET, Germany’s DAX and France’s CAC 40 were down 0.62 per cent and 1.47 per cent, respectively. Markets in Britain and Japan were closed. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng ended down 1.04 per cent. New York futures were weaker. The Canadian dollar was trading at 75.08 US cents.
What everyone’s talking about
Canada’s population is booming – and we aren’t building nearly enough homes
“The federal government is pushing ambitious population growth, so it needs to play a bigger role in housing, to make sure construction keeps up.” - Editorial
Canadian cities are finally rediscovering their neglected waterfronts
“Calgary is not the only place rediscovering its waterfront. From coast to coast, Canadian cities are turning the once-ugly and polluted water’s edge into inventive urban spaces. It’s one of the best things to happen to our cities in my lifetime.” - Marcus Gee
Today’s editorial cartoon
David Parkins/The Globe and Mail
Living better
No flashy fantasy: Four fun shows to savour on streaming
From Bad Sisters, a kooky, rather lurid British crime drama, to the low-key but brilliant creation of comedian Mohammed (Mo) Amer, there’s a slate of compelling recent series to get absorbed in.
Moment in time: A floral fundraiser
An enthusiastic army of taggers appeared on the streets of Toronto bright and early, May 2, 1928, selling tags to aid the work of the Canadian National Institute for the Blind.John Boyd/The Globe and Mail
For more than 100 years, photographers and photo editors working for The Globe and Mail have preserved an extraordinary collection of news photography. Every Monday, The Globe features one of these images. This month, we’re looking at charities.
Queen Elizabeth supported more than 600 charities through her 70-year reign, but the bond between the Royal Family and charities has been around for a long time. Queen Alexandra, wife of King Edward VII, wanted to celebrate the 50th anniversary of her coming to Britain from Denmark to marry the then-Prince of Wales. So in 1912, she started the Alexandra Rose Charity, selling artificial roses to help Londoners in poverty access health care. Further, she stipulated that the roses were to be created by women and girls with disabilities. The fundraiser idea caught on. In John Boyd’s Globe photo above from May of 1927 (two years after the dowager queen died), five Toronto women at the corner of Yonge and Bloor streets sold roses to raise money for children’s charities. They were part of a team that raised $17,000 that day. In Britain, Alexandra Rose Day lives on. Its mission? Helping low-income people access fresh fruit and vegetables. Philip King
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