Which is the better option: Looking or being politically correct? Clearly a rhetorical question, one our federal government seems to prefer to ignore altogether.
Of course, the issue is the changing the words of the national anthem to make it gender-inclusive by replacing the line “in all thy sons command” with that in the original version, “thou dost in us command”.
As you will remember, the gender sensitivity surrounding the national anthem emerged after “O Canada” was played 14 times during the 2010 Winter Olympics.
There were only a few days between two announcements: that the federal government would be prepared to listen to the voice of the people on the issue, and the one saying that people had already spoken loudly and clearly against the changes.
Where is the data showing how people spoke so loudly and definitively against the change in such a short time? I, for one, don’t know.
It is not that I believe changing one line in the national anthem would matter a lot. Actually there are several other issues with the lyrics of the national anthem.
Incidentally, we have recently received a “letter to the editor,” though from another province, complaining of the reference to the God in the national anthem of a secular country. The author said “Reference to a god did not appear in any constitution-type document in this country until 1982. Then the phrase ‘Canada is founded upon principles that recognize the supremacy of God’ was arbitrarily inserted.”
The author also said he believed the reference to God in “O Canada” was an interference to compel millions of Canadians with no religious beliefs to express their allegiance to a faith they had not adopted.
Clearly, there are many Canadians who have problems with the lyrics of the national anthem from one or another angle.
But one should also be aware of the fact that in a nation of 33 million people, it is impossible to find absolute consensus on such a sensitive topic as the national anthem.
There are other issues, however, that an overwhelming majority of this country would want to have fairly resolved, issues that are generally not brought to the surface to be discussed by the electorate at large.
One of them concerns an undisputable case of gender discrimination: If an applicant for Canadian citizenship has ties to Canada only through a female connection - grandmother or mother-, the laws allow for the refusal of this application while an application that is based on a male connection goes through without any problems.
And Jason Kenney, Minister of Citizenship and Immigration says he sees no need to change the laws to address this injustice.
Wouldn’t you think that such brazen discrimination has a much more direct bearing on the lives of people than the lyrics of the national anthem?
— Mustafa Eric