The RCMP spent at least $539,575 on incremental security costs to protect Prince Harry during Canada visits from 2014/15 to 2019/20, a CBC-obtained record shows. The figure covers travel and overtime but excludes officers' base salaries, so the total public cost is higher. The amount is larger than a previously disclosed 2021 figure and exceeded costs for any other internationally protected visitor during the same period, prompting renewed questions about transparency in accounting for taxpayer-funded protection.
RCMP Spent At Least $539,575 Protecting Prince Harry in Canada, Documents Show
Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, leaves the High Court after attending the fourth day of the trial in a privacy case against Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL), the publisher of the Daily Mail, over unlawful information gathering in London, United Kingdom on January 22, 2026. Seven high-profile claimants allege ANL hired private detectives to commit a series of unlawful acts ranging from phone tapping, home bugging to obtaining medical records by deception. (Photo credit should read Wiktor Szymanowicz/Future Publishing via Getty Images)
A newly disclosed government record obtained by CBC News shows the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) spent at least $539,575 in incremental protection costs to secure Prince Harry during visits to Canada between 2014/15 and 2019/20. The figure covers overtime, travel and other extra expenses tied to protective operations but does not include the baseline salaries of the officers assigned — meaning the full public cost is higher than the disclosed amount.
What the Record Shows
The document, released under Canada’s access to information law, indicates that the RCMP’s incremental costs for Prince Harry over that five-year span exceeded the amounts recorded for any other internationally protected person who visited Canada during the same period. The newly disclosed total is substantially larger than the $334,337 figure the RCMP released in 2021.
Who Else Was Covered
During 2014/15–2019/20 the RCMP provided protection for more than 100 internationally protected visitors. Other notable names on that roster included former U.S. President Barack Obama, Eric Trump, Donald Trump Jr. and former U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair. The CBC-obtained document does not list costs for some other royal visits — for example, expenses tied to visits by Princess Anne and Prince Edward were omitted, as those trips were described as "private working" visits.
Context: Why Costs Were Incurred
Prince Harry’s trips during that period included appearances related to the Invictus Games, multiple return visits while he remained a working member of the royal family, and the period when he and Meghan Markle stayed in Canada after stepping back from frontline royal duties (often referred to in media accounts as the couple’s "Freedom Flight"). Under international conventions, the RCMP is responsible for securing individuals on Canada’s internationally protected persons list whether their travel is official, business or personal.
Experts and commentators have flagged the disclosure as reigniting public debate about transparency and how the government accounts for taxpayer-funded security for high-profile visitors.
The CBC document provides one of the clearest publicly available breakdowns to date of the RCMP’s incremental spending on internationally protected visitors in the mid-2010s, and the discrepancy between the new and prior figures has renewed calls for clearer reporting on both incremental and core security costs.
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