No Canada, don’t change our anthem
Oh, Canada, here we go again.
The movement to change the supposedly sexist lyrics of O Canada is back.
Possibly taking their cue from Quebec’s farcical saga — “we’ll keep holding referendums until we get the answer we want” — advocates for getting rid of the anthem’s phrase “in all thy sons command” are stirring the pot anew. They now claim the support of notables such as former prime minister Kim Campbell and writer Margaret Atwood.
I don’t understand what this name-dropping is supposed to achieve. Just because Atwood and Campbell think the world should be run a certain way, doesn’t mean that it should.
It’s like saying that Kim Campbell and Margaret Atwood think everyone should have blueberry muffins for breakfast. If other people don’t like blueberry muffins, Campbell and Atwood weighing in on the issue doesn’t lend it more validity or make muffins more palatable.
Atwood claims half of Canadians have been excluded because of the word “sons.” Speak for yourself, Margaret.
None of the women I know have said they feel excluded. As Canadian citizens, we feel included. As for “sons,” what is so poisonous about it? Sons. Beautiful word — especially to those of us who are the mothers of boys.
The group also claims women are increasingly discontented with O Canada’s words. What women? Nobody I know was polled by this group.
I suspect this is just one of those sweeping statements made to shore up a small group’s position, one that isn’t backed by hard numbers.
After all, when this issue came up three years ago, the Prime Minister’s Office was awash with calls and emails from people who most emphatically did not want the anthem changed, and one survey indicated 75 per cent of Canadians wanted to keep the anthem as it is.
Women were among those polled and among those who contacted the PMO, and did so with such vehemence, that Prime Minister Stephen Harper realized where public sentiment lay, and vetoed any change.
So, given the overwhelming majority who opposed this just three years ago, the number of women who are alleged to be increasingly unhappy must be a pretty small minority. In fact, as of Monday, only six people had signed the petition demanding change.
Hopefully, the federal government will put the kibosh on this nonsense fairly quickly again.
As one commenter on CT V’s website w rote: “Leave the lyrics alone. And I am a woman and think all this gender sensitivity is garbage.”
It is indeed; it’s politically correct garbage, just like the fuss about changing “alderman” to “councillor” in Calgary.
By the way, in the rush to eradicate the suffix “man” from the title of that position, the politically correct have only demonstrated their ignorance of Latin — the “or” suffix on councillor is also masculine. They have essentially changed nothing by going from alderman to councillor. Think “señor” and “señora” in Spanish.
When the anthem changers talk of exclusion, I’d like to know what we women are being excluded from.
We are full citizens of this country. We are equal before the law. We serve in the military, we vote, we hold public office, we are scientists, engineers, doctors, lawyers, you name it.
We have more opportunity than we’ve ever had. We have never been more free to follow our hearts, our dreams and our aspirations.
Just what is it that the word “sons” — which is understood in O Canada to refer figuratively to all Canadians regardless of gender — excludes us from? The tack the would-be anthem changers are taking this time is that the version they want would be a “restoration” to the 1873 lyrics before Robert Stanley Weir altered the contentious line in 1913 to “in all thy sons command.”
The group wants the anthem restored to “thou dost in us command.” Talk about lyrics that don’t exactly roll easily off the tongue — which might be why they were changed 100 years ago.
This year marks the centennial of the version with Weir’s line about “sons.” We should honour O Canada’s 100th anniversary by preserving it, not changing it.
Another argument — and one that shows the anthem restorer folks are grasping at straws — is that some U.S. universities, including Dartmouth, Princeton and Rutgers, have changed their anthems to be more genderinclusive.
The comparison is ridiculous. Canada is a country, not a university. A college team’s rah-rah fight song is hardly the same as the anthem of an entire nation. It’s like saying Twinkle Twinkle Little Star is on a par with a Mozart clarinet concerto.
“I think a politician would have to be somewhat addled to refuse this entirely practical request,” Atwood said. I think a politician would have to be greatly addled to approve this entirely unnecessary request.
Take that, Maggie. And you too, Kim.