Canada Parliament Votes To Make National Anthem Gender-Neutral

Canada’s Parliament voted overwhelmingly last week to pass a bill aimed at making the country’s national anthem gender-neutral.

Bill C-210, which passed 219 to 79, proposes to switch just two words in the lyrics of “O Canada” — changing “in all thy sons command” to “in all of us command” in one verse. The simple substitution is meant to do away with the exclusively male phrasing in part of the song, but it’s also causing an uproar among some conservative members of Canada’s government.

While a large majority of the Liberal Party-dominated Parliament favors the change, Conservative Party members vocally opposed the vote and accused Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal Party of forcing through the bill without consulting Canadians. Some Conservatives allege that the expediency is because the bill’s author, Mauril Belanger, has amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, and his health is in quick decline. Conservative MP Peter Van Loan also accused the Liberals of trying to impose their worldview on Canadians.

Supporters of the bill point out that changes to the anthem are nothing new. The “thy sons” line wasn’t even in the original anthem, but was added later, in 1913. In fact, “O Canada” has only been the country’s official national anthem since 1980, when it replaced “God Save The Queen.”