Meghan already putting down roots in Toronto

As controversy rages in the UK over the royal rift, Meghan is already taking steps to establish a new role in Canada.

Meghan Markle poses for a picture for the Canadian organisation Justice for Girls. Picture: AFP

While controversy over the decision to step back as “senior royals” continued to rage in Britain, the Duchess of Sussex was making her first tentative steps this week to establish a new role.

From her base in an £11 million mansion in the millionaires’ playground of Vancouver Island she has visited voluntary organisations on the mainland. She has also taken the opportunity to see old friends and was seen smiling as she drove to the airport to meet Heather Dorak, a Pilates instructor who attended her wedding in May 2018.

As Meghan and Harry ponder where in Canada to set up home, friends have speculated that the duke will be happy to remain on the west coast while his wife is likely to favour a move 2,000 miles east to her former home city of Toronto. A friend from her “Soho House set” there said the former actress would want to return to the city where she spent six years filming the legal drama Suits.

Meghan has described Soho House as her “working headquarters” as she became part of the city’s celebrity scene. She lived in fashionable Seaton Village, dated the celebrity chef Cory Vitiello and walked her dogs in Trinity Bellwoods Park, which she labelled a “hipsters’ paradise”.

Toronto is also home to the duchess’s closest friends, including Jessica Mulroney, a stylist and TV actress who is married to Ben Mulroney, son of the former Canadian prime minister Brian Mulroney.

Soho House’s bars, restaurants and roof terrace in a Georgian building in central Toronto provide a chance to escape the pressures of city life, and members can use the pool and gym in the neighbouring hotel. Harry and Meghan are reported to have been introduced at its London parent club.

Meghan Markle at the offices of the Vancouver organisation Justice for Girls. Picture: AFP

A fellow member who asked to remain anonymous said: “Meghan has a lot of connections here. She finds it comfortable and believes it is somewhere they can develop new roles and pursue her interests. I don’t think she felt that same connection in the UK.

“There isn’t the same focus here on celebrities. She can be walking down the street and people won’t interfere. Harry doesn’t want that constant pressure, he doesn’t want his son to go through that.”

Not everyone has been positive about the couples’ plan to relocate to Canada. The Globe and Mail, the biggest national newspaper, said they were not welcome as members of the royal family. However, polls show that despite concerns about the couple’s security costs, constitutional role and immigration status they have been embraced by the public. One survey found 69 per cent of Canadians considered Harry the most popular member of the royal family.

Both Vancouver and Toronto are key bases for Canada’s thriving film industry and the leaders of both provinces said the couple would be welcomed. John Horgan, in British Columbia, said he was “giddy” at the prospect of the couple remaining in Vancouver. Doug Ford, the premier of Ontario, said they would be greeted “with open arms”.

Last week Meghan ended her self-imposed exile from public life by visiting two voluntary organisations in Vancouver. Her first stop was Justice for Girls, which campaigns for teenage girls living in poverty; her second was the Downtown Eastside Women’s Centre, where she met staff but not residents of the refuge.

The Sussexes spent the first Christmas with their son Archie on Vancouver Island because the husband of Meghan’s old school friend, Katharine McPhee, knows the owner of the mansion on the shore of Deep Cove. The five-bedroom main property and three-bedroom guest cottage are set within four acres of gardens on a secluded peninsula.

The royal couple kept a low profile during their six-week stay, visiting shops in the nearby resort of Sidney, buying sandwiches from the local market store and hiking in Horth Hill. At some point they agreed that they wanted a permanent break from the pressures of royal life, and returned to the UK to announce they were stepping back from their official roles.

The Times