CANADIANS WHO ARE TRYING TO FIND THEMSELVES???

...I WOULD SUGGEST THEY RETURN TO THEIR COUNTRY OF ORIGIN!

Editing the national anthem to be more sensitive

BY: The Keenan Wire

BY EDWARD KEENAN

A group called Restore Our Anthem—which includes Margaret Atwood—is arguing that the lyrics to O Canada should be changed (or “restored”) to remove the gender-specific “in all our sons command” line and replace it with “in all of us command.” A bit of history: The original lyrics in that section read that true patriot love “thou dost in us command.” And in the 1960s, Parliament added the bits about “from far and wide” and about “God keep our land.” (Originally, the words were “and stand on guard” and “O Canada” in those places, respectively. Wikipedia offers a 1937 recording of the anthem being sung here.) So there’s nothing particularly sacred about the revision we’re working with now—a couple of years ago, Stephen Harper’s government suggested it would revert the anthem to the original, before backing off of that idea. (The issue, I have often heard, might have been put in the 2010 throne speech as a flak-catching talking point to distract from other, more serious things that were also contained in the speech.)
My own take is that Restore Our Anthem has a point, and I have no objection to making the change they suggest, for the reasons they suggest. I’m in favour.
But I’m also sensitive to how once you get to revising things, you can get a little carried away. In fact, in the past, people have suggested removing the references to our “native land” and the references to God. In 2010, when the suggestion was made to revise the lyrics, I took out my red pen and imagined an entire sensitivity-trained edit of the anthem to put it in line with some of our more modern sensibilities and language preferences. Since it has fallen down the internet wormhole, I repost it here in its entirety (with a few slight tweaks)—an anthem for all of us in the Twitter age:

O Canada!

Our home and native [outdated terminology and lack of possessive attribution] First Nations peoples’ land!
True patriot love in all thy sons [gender restrictive] thou dost in us [oh, wait, I see you have a suggestion already covering this] in all of us command [imperialist language] inspire consensus.With glowing hearts we see [insensitive to the sight-impaired] become aware of thee rise,The True North strong [this privileges physical power, which can often be masculine-value normative and insensitive to the differently powerful] empowered and free [does not fully reflect the Charter of Rights and Freedoms] free subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society!From far and wide [is this a crack about weight? In any event, it's nonsensical and leaves out those who are not from far, such as First Nations peoples] not from far,O Canada, we stand [neglects the differently abled] exist on guard for thee.God keep [intolerant of varied belief systems] This is our land, glorious and free free subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society!
O Canada, we stand exist on guard for thee.
O Canada, we stand exist on guard for thee.