Canada’s national anthem is set to become gender-neutral after a 30-year battle by campaigners.
Senators passed legislation on Wednesday to change the second line of the anthem from ‘in all thy sons command’ to ‘in all of us command’ to become more inclusive. Once the legislation is approved by the governor-general it will become law.
But the move has been deeply controversial, with some mocking the decision for being too ‘politically correct’ and lacking ‘perspective’, and others seeing it as an important step towards equality.
This is the 12th bill to attempt to alter O Canada since it was made the country’s anthem in 1980. But until now, they have always been defeated by Conservatives.
But on Wednesday, Liberal and Independent Canadian senators took advantage of a Conservative boycott so the bill passed almost unanimously.
This latest bill was proposed in 2016 by late Liberal lawmaker Mauril Belanger, who was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s disease and did not live to see it become law.
Today, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau celebrated the news, tweeting: ‘Mauril’s bill to make O Canada gender neutral passed third reading in the Senate tonight – another positive step towards gender equality. #inallofuscommand.’
The step was also welcomed by The Handmaiden’s Tale author Margaret Attwood who thanked the Senate for finally passing the bill. But many more were outraged over what they claim in ‘political correctness gone too far’. Others argued it simply wasn’t an issue that needed to change.
Others insisted they would continue to sing the 1980s version, regardless of the changes.
‘SorryNotSorry but I am NOT changing the way I sing O Canada,’ another Twitter user tweeted.
One person who was delighted with the news was Ontario Senator Frances Lankin, who sponsored the bill.
‘I’m very, very happy,’ she told CBC. ‘There’s been 30 years plus of activity trying to make our national anthem, this important thing about our country, inclusive of all of us.
‘This may be small, it’s about two words, but it’s huge… we can now sing it with pride knowing the law will support us in terms of the language.
‘I’m proud to be part of the group that made this happen.
In fact, the change from ‘all thy sons command’ to ‘in all of us command’ is a return to the 1908 English version, written by Robert Stanley Weir, a lawyer and recorder with the City of Montreal.
‘In all of us command’ was only changed after the First World War allegedly in an attempt to boost war efforts and at a time when the women’s suffragette movement was still highly controversial.
However, at that time the British national anthem of God Save the King, and later God Save the Queen was the official anthem in Canada. O Canada wasn’t formally adopted as the country’s sole anthem until 1980.
The song was originally written in French by Adolphe-Basile Routhier in 1880 and called Chant National.
It was adapted into English in several different translations, but Weir’s became the most popular and his version is the basis of the shortened one sung today.
Still, it went through many more changes before the National Anthem Act was passed unanimously by the Senate and the House of Commons on June 27, 1980, writing it into law.