When I was a teenager, I went with my friend to a Canadian Idol audition. Surprisingly, I got through a few rounds (these stupid talent shows do many pre-rounds before you get on TV) and maybe it's because I sucked and would make great cringe-worthy television or maybe they just needed a teen with half-dyed blue hair. In the audition process you write the three songs you want to sing on a piece of paper. Of course, when I went up, the judges didn't know the songs I had picked, so they made me sing "Stand By Me" and then, the Canadian national anthem. It took some serious vocal tricks to disguise the words I could not remember. I hadn't sang our great nation's national anthem since I was forced to at assembly in elementary school.
I live in America now and everyone knows the national anthem. They know it, but they don't really know it, but I'm sure if you walked down the street in California and pointed your finger at any legal immigrant they could recite it word for word. Of course, this is only because they just had to take their America test for citizenship. My American friends need refreshers from their Boy Scout days to recite the nation's song of pride.
This week, our government wallowed over Bill C-210, which would amend the National Anthem Act to change two words in the Canadian anthem. Instead of "in all thy sons command," it would now read "in all of us command" to be more inclusive and include those who don't identify under that gender pronoun.
Can I get a who-cares on this?
Is anyone actually offended by our national anthem. Is this really that big of a pressing matter? First that ridiculous cry fest over Justin Trudeau's infamous elbow to the boob and now this? Get a grip, House of Commons.
If we went back in time and modernized all the fables we would destroy our history. Progressives: you would have no yard stick to mark your own progression. The national anthem was composed in 1880 by Calixa Lavallée and the lyrics were written, in French, by poet and judge Sir Adolphe-Basile Routhier. This was a very different time, and the meaning behind the use of “sons” was probably alluding to young men who fought in battle or whatever defense our country needed to manifest.
The core of this whole bill just seems like a joke. I'm with the Conservatives on this one if only for the fact that this trivial little glitch is moribund. Furthermore, it seems disrespectful to tamper with the words Robert Stanley Weir penned when he translated the original version from French to English in 1908. That's a piece of our history and as dorky as the anthem may be, it's what it is.
Why does a song written over 100 years ago need to be changed to fit today's PC narrative? Is some bored kid in school being forced to mime the words really crying over her exclusion? Of course not, because this is an empty gesture and it accomplishes nothing. Changing a single word in the national anthem doesn’t improve the lives of women and transgendered Canadians, it doesn’t prevent violence or discrimination.
Maybe the House of Commons should be looking at actual substantial changes it could enact instead of political grandstanding so MPs can pat themselves on the back. This bill is self-serving and it changes nothing. Is our government so goddamn bored they have nothing else to do with the taxpayers’ money?
O Canada, please… get real.
