Prince Harry accumulated the largest taxpayer-funded security bill of any visiting dignitary in Canada over a five-year window, newly disclosed Royal Canadian Mounted Police records have revealed.
Between April 2015 and March 2020, protecting the Duke and Duchess of Sussex cost Canadian taxpayers £286,686.
The figures emerged after state broadcaster CBC prevailed in a six-year freedom of information battle to obtain the financial records, which were originally requested in January 2020 but only released this week following intervention by Canada’s Information Commissioner Caroline Maynard.
Harry’s protection costs represented more than 10 per cent of the £2.66 million total spent guarding roughly 100 visiting royals, politicians, diplomats and their relatives.
Prince Harry accumulated the largest taxpayer-funded security bill of any visiting dignitary in Canada over a five-year window, newly disclosed Royal Canadian Mounted Police records have revealed.
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GETTY
The duke’s annual security costs reached their highest point at £193,723 during the 2017-18 financial year, when he proposed to Meghan Markle as she filmed the final series of Suits in Toronto.
The previous year, when the couple first met on a blind date and began a secret relationship, the Mountie protection bill stood at £56,221.
The RCMP attributes the overwhelming majority of the five-year total directly to Prince Harry, who made multiple covert trips to Toronto from 2016 onwards, frequently staying at Meghan’s home in the city.
“We had a good five, six months almost with just privacy, which was amazing,” Meghan said at the time.
Between April 2015 and March 2020, protecting the Duke and Duchess of Sussex cost Canadian taxpayers £286,686.
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GETTY
By comparison, his father’s security during a 2017 visit to Ontario and Quebec with Camilla cost £94,859 — less than half of Harry’s peak year alone.
A separate entry in the newly released documents lists £5,642 against the Duchess of Sussex for the 2018-19 financial year, which CBC has linked to a private three-day trip Meghan took to Toronto in August 2018 to visit her then-close friend Jessica Mulroney.
It is thought to have been her sole visit to Canada during that period.
The two women had grown close over the seven years Meghan spent filming Suits in Toronto, with Mulroney widely credited with influencing many of the duchess’s most notable fashion choices.
Mulroney’s children played prominent roles at the royal wedding at St George’s Chapel, Windsor.
However, their friendship reportedly disintegrated in June 2020.