Canadian Senate poised to adopt ‘gender neutral’ national anthem
by Peter LaBarbera, LifeSite:
Canada’s upper house is one step from neutering O Canada! by changing “in all thy sons command” to “in all of us command,” but a vocal bipartisan minority of senators is opposing any change to the national anthem.
The bill’s late sponsor, MP Mauril Belanger, summed up his case: “On the eve of the 150th anniversary of our federation, it is important that one of our most recognized and appreciated national symbols reflect the progress made by our country in terms of gender equality.”
For Belanger and most in the Liberal and New Democratic Party caucuses, the offending passage speaks of an era when women could not vote at all, let alone be senators or MPs.
From a historical perspective, the anthem honors the 60,000-plus Canadians, virtually all male, who died in the First World War opposing German aggression. The line was added to the song’s English version just before that war began by its author, Robert Stanley Weir. Though O Canada! did not become Canada’s official anthem till 1980, it became so informally decades earlier.
Liberal Senator Joan Fraser called the revision “clunky, leaden and pedestrian.” Though she considers herself “an ardent feminist,” she has no time for efforts to revise an historic document to reflect “today’s values.”
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