In a spectacle critics are calling “peak liberal delusion,” King Charles III opened Canada’s 45th Parliament on Tuesday by delivering a land acknowledgment from the throne—sparking backlash that stretched from Ottawa to Westminster that had many in the United States laughing. Draped in royal regalia, the monarch solemnly declared that the ceremony was taking place on “the unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinaabeg people,” triggering chuckles over the absurdity of the performative excesses of Western elites.
🚨WATCH: King Charles gives a 'land acknowledgment' in Canada.
"I would like to acknowledge that we are gathered on the unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinaabeg people." pic.twitter.com/7RBBAb1cQJ
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) May 27, 2025
The royal visit—Charles’s 20th to Canada—was meant to reinforce ties with the Commonwealth. Instead, it’s reinforced the growing perception that liberal leaders in both Canada and Britain are more interested in symbolic penitence than practical governance. While full military honors and a 21-gun salute played out on Parliament Hill, conservative commentators online were quick to note the irony: a British monarch, presiding over a colonial institution, issuing a self-flagellating apology with no legal or political consequences.
Social media platforms lit up with ridicule and mockery. “These land acknowledgments are unbelievably stupid,” one user posted on Twitter, echoing a growing sentiment that such declarations have become hollow rituals.
The outrage wasn’t confined to the online right—Indigenous critics themselves have long pointed out that these gestures often ring hollow. A 2021 CBC article cited Indigenous voices who called land acknowledgments “superficial, performative — and problematic.”
The fallout has exposed a broader crisis of credibility for liberal governments in Canada and Britain, both of which have embraced progressive pageantry while failing to deliver meaningful reforms. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, long known for his emotional appeals to reconciliation, once again positioned Canada as a moral contrast to its southern neighbor. But many observers saw the performance as another example of liberal virtue signaling that substitutes pageantry for progress.
Across the Atlantic, British liberals have faced parallel criticism for their own obsession with historical guilt. Critics argue that both governments are trapped in a cycle of symbolic apology that satisfies no one: it offers no restitution to Indigenous communities, yet inflames public resentment by appearing unserious and insincere.
As King Charles departs Ottawa, the episode leaves behind a growing chorus of skeptics in both Canada and Britain who see these symbolic rituals as evidence of political classes utterly unmoored from reality and two nations in decay.
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I’m amazed that the brainless inbred king could pronounce those words…if he did.
It’s a good thing King Chuck’s mum, Elisabeth II, held on for as long as possible so Chuck won’t be king for long. This liberal joke, to put it mildly, would be kissing some other countries ass if not for his mum’s patriotism. Every time I see him and his clown queen Camilla it makes me laugh.