TORONTO - Prince Charles and his wife Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall, landed in Toronto on Wednesday afternoon to begin the Ontario leg of their Canadian tour.

Charles walked down the steps first, followed by his wife, and the couple shook hands with provincial dignitaries, including Premier Dalton McGuinty and his wife, and Lt.-Gov. David Onley.

The royals were to attend a government reception on Wednesday night on the first day of their three-day Ontario visit.

Camilla was to visit the Royal Conservatory of Music and be treated to a brief performance by three young musicians.

Earlier Wednesday, the royal couple remembered Newfoundland and Labrador's war dead at a ceremony in St. John's.

Prince Charles laid a wreath at the province's National War Memorial as Camilla and others stood quietly.

Seven-year-old Matthew Lucas reached up to Camilla, put his arms around her neck and kissed her.

Camilla was delighted by the spontaneous show of sweetness from a little boy whose father, Sgt. Donald Lucas of St. John's, was among six Canadian soldiers killed by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan on April 8, 2007.

Matthew gave a pin to Charles but explained that he couldn't give him the General Campaign Star he had pinned to his chest.

It was "my Dad's," he said.

"It's real gold," he assured Charles as his mother, Natasha, and four-year-old sister, Mackenzie, stood nearby.

Earlier in the day at Newfoundland and Labrador's Government House, the royal couple carried out a tradition that dates back to 1939. That was the year King George VI visited with Queen Elizabeth, later known as the Queen Mum, and planted oak trees in a province that was then a self-governing dominion of the British empire.

Charles and Camilla kept up the ritual, each taking turns shovelling dirt, sprinkling water and tapping the trunks of two young oak saplings.

On Thursday, the royal couple is to move on to Hamilton and Niagara-on-the-Lake.

The duchess is to visit Hamilton's Dundurn Castle, which was home to Sir Allan Napier MacNab, Canada's pre-Confederation prime minister and Camilla's great-great-great grandfather.

On Friday, the couple returns to Toronto to open the 87th annual Royal Agricultural Winter Fair.

The royals, who opened their tour in Newfoundland and Labrador, will also make stops in British Columbia and Montreal before ending their 11-day tour next Thursday in Ottawa.