[6]The role of the Crown is both legal and practical; it functions in Ontario in the same way it does in all of Canada's other provinces, being the centre of a constitutional construct in which the institutions of government acting under the sovereign's authority share the power of the whole.

[8] The Canadian monarch—since  8 September 2022, King Charles III—is represented and his duties carried out by the lieutenant governor of Ontario, whose direct participation in governance is limited by the conventional stipulations of constitutional monarchy, with most related powers entrusted for exercise by the elected parliamentarians, the ministers of the Crown generally drawn from among them, and the judges and justices of the peace.

[6][9][10] This arrangement began with the 1867 British North America Act[1] and continued an unbroken line of monarchical government extending back to the early 17th century.

A viceregal suite in the Ontario Legislative Building in Toronto is used both as an office and official event location by the lieutenant governor, the sovereign, and other members of the royal family.

From then, Ontario residents descended from these original refugees may use the post-nominals UE, standing for United Empire,[18] and the Canadian Heraldic Authority can grant them distinctive coronets in their coats of arms.

It was the attempted forced return to the United States of one of those slaves—Chloe Cooley—in 1793 that prompted the abolitionist John Graves Simcoe, then serving as King George III's representative in Upper Canada (a territory formed out of the western portion of the Province of Quebec in 1791, because of the influx of Loyalists), to push for legislation abolishing slavery in the colony.

Though he faced resistance from the Legislative Assembly, Simcoe, later that year, gave royal assent to the Act Against Slavery, making Upper Canada "the first jurisdiction in the British Empire to pass a law freeing slaves.

Along with Simcoe, Prince Edward made a point of visiting Forts Niagara and Scholsser, getting himself involved in a boundary dispute with the United States in the process.

[31] When the US Army first invaded, crossing the Detroit River and landing at Sandwich (today Windsor) on 12 July,[32] the commander, William Hull ordered all subjects of the King to surrender, telling them he desired to free them from the "tyranny" of Britain and give them liberty, security, and wealth, unless they preferred "war, slavery, and destruction.

[43] The Reformers' leader, William Lyon Mackenzie, attempted to petition the King to have the election declared invalid, but, was dismissed by the Colonial Office in London.

That sustained until 13 January 1838, when, under attack by British armaments, the rebels fled, with Mackenzie running to the United States mainland, where he was arrested for violating the Neutrality Act.

[51] In the wake of the disturbances, the Queen called on her people in Upper Canada to eschew vengeance on the perpetrators in favour of justice and,[52] as a mark of goodwill with which to begin her reign and to commemorate her coronation, the Victoria used her royal prerogative to pardon many of the rebels, continuing to do so through the 1840s.

[53] The Queen's representative in British North America, the Earl of Durham, penned a report containing recommendations for change following the Lower and Upper Canada Rebellions.

The Duke of Newcastle, who accompanied the Prince, instructed the Mayor of Toronto to ensure Albert Edward's procession would not pass under any Orange Order arches.

At Kingston, the Duke ordered the royal yacht not to dock, as the Orangemen had erected a welcoming arch on the pier, with an image of William of Orange on one side and a depiction of the Albert Edward with the anti-Catholic revolutionary Giuseppe Garibaldi on the other.

Prince Albert (later King George VI), toured Ontario in 1913, while serving as a midshipman aboard the Royal Navy cruiser HMS Cumberland,[64] visiting Toronto and Niagara Falls.