National anthems are a funny old thing.
They are, by their very definition, an antiquated, patriotic piece of music composed many years ago to honour and eulogize a country and its people.
And then we wonder why they’re so outdated.
‘O Canada’ is of course no different. Originally commissioned in 1880 for Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day, the French lyrics were translated into English in 1908 and revised twice since.
And now Liberal MP Mauril Belanger will be hoping to change them once more. The goal? To make our national anthem gender neutral.
He’s not exactly reinventing the wheel – the Ottawa MP simply wants to change the second line of the anthem from “in all thy sons command” to “in all of us command,” which, if successful, would be a grand total of two words altered.
The reason? Because women, and not just sons, are patriotic too.
Sounds simple enough. So why have so many attempts before it been rejected?
Even when Belanger polled public opinion on updating ‘O Canada’ last year, finding 60 per cent in favour, almost all MPs ultimately voted against the bill.
Perhaps an air of traditionalism surrounds the national anthem. An untouchable relic that shouldn’t be tampered with, some may prefer that we leave it well alone and remember that it’s a product of its time.
But Belanger isn’t asking for a radical overhaul. In fact, his changes would return the anthem to resemble a version that previously existed at the start of the last century.
‘Sons’ was introduced by Robert Stanley Weir, the lyricist behind the anthem, in 1914 presumably in light of World War One. Prior to this it read a very neutral “thou dost in us command.”
Nobody is asking for a Drake-ified “We the North, strong and free!” There are no modernisms threatening to sully the anthem. It’s simply a return to more balanced version, that already existed.
Fast forward a year and we have a Liberal majority. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has created a gender-balanced cabinet and he’s raising his kids to be feminist to boot.
So perhaps it’s finally time to create a gender neutral anthem for Canada too?
The only question is, at what point do we stop? Do we keep the parts about God despite Canada being a religiously diverse, secular country.
Should “stalwart sons and gentle maidens” be deemed sexist?
It’s nice to have traditions like a national anthem because it reminds us where we’ve come from. But just as we listen to the songs our grandparents played in disbelief – the words frozen in time from a world we no longer live in – it’s important that we don’t hold onto things that halt our progress simply because of ‘tradition’.
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