Good news for kids who start their days by singing a lively rendition of O Canada in their classrooms. Looks like Canadians are embracing changes to use more progressive, gender-inclusive language. In a bill that passed the Senate yesterday, the national anthem will no longer reference “in all thy sons command” but instead will be replaced by the gender-neutral lyric, “in all of us command.” Considering that kids are increasingly being taught these days about the importance of gender inclusivity, this small but significant step can help create unity around the overall messages they are receiving.
The bill to make this change was first proposed in 2016 by Liberal MP Mauril Bérlanger, and now that it’s passed the Senate, it has just one more hurdle: to receive the royal assent by the Governor General. (Actually, since the song became the official national anthem in 1980 there have been 12 bills (!) that made it to the house, all attempting to remove the word “sons,” which some argue is discriminatory. None succeeded.)
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This wouldn’t be the first lyric change to the song. Written by Robert Stanley Weir in 1908, O Canada has...