Proposed change to O Canada lyrics could hit procedural snag

OTTAWA — A private member’s bill to make the language of the national anthem gender-neutral is facing another roadblock.

A Conservative amendment that changes proposed language from “in all of us command” to “thou dost in us command” could inadvertently kill the bill when it goes back to the House of Commons, said Senate sponsor Sen. Frances Lankin. The lyric has until now been “true patriot love, in all thy sons command.”

Because the bill’s original sponsor, Mauril Belanger, died last year, the House would require unanimous consent for a new bill sponsor before being able to vote on the Senate’s amendment. In theory, any one of the 74 MPs who voted against the bill could block its progress by denying consent.

Conservative Sen. Donald Plett, who proposed the amendment, said Wednesday that the Commons rule was “news to most of us in the Senate” but shouldn’t change senators’ deliberations on the merit of his proposal. “Given the circumstances, I have every reason to believe that the House of Commons would allow for a change in sponsorship,” Plett said.

Belanger, the longtime MP for Ottawa-Vanier, succumbed to ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis) last August. His struggle with the disease was public, and so was his championing of the national anthem bill, which passed the Commons last June but which still must be approved by the Senate.

Plett said he believes the anthem is already inclusive but “the only appropriate change to the anthem would be to revert to the lyrics penned by the author himself.”

The proposed words “thou dost in us command” come from a first draft of composer Judge Robert Stanley Weir.

To change the specific language proposed by Belanger isn’t necessarily a bad idea, Lankin conceded.

“I’m not opposed to (Plett’s) language. I think it accomplishes gender neutrality, and I think it is the heritage language of O Canada,” she said. But even if the intentions are good, “all senators need to know what the effect of that would be.”