Get out of the way

When the House of Commons voted last year to change two words in O Canada, it seemed to resolve a 30-year struggle. After countless failed campaigns, motions and bills, those who view our anthem as a living symbol that ought to evolve along with our values appeared finally to have prevailed. “In all thy sons command” would become “in all of us command,” and all Canadians would at last be included in the song.

But one should never count out the opposing camp in this endless conflict. Those who view our anthem as a historical artifact that above all must be preserved constitute an equally large and vociferous group — one that, crucially for the future of the anthem, contains a number of senators.

These legislators are now mounting a last stand, threatening to allow the bill to languish in its final reading in the Upper House, almost a year after the elected Members of Parliament approved it. They are wrong on all counts.

The notion that we should continue to do something simply because we have always done it that way is a dangerous fallacy.

To change the lyrics of O Canada would be a tribute, not an affront, to tradition. The words to our anthem have been rewritten at least 25 times before.

And if the proposed change is ungrammatical, then so is the current version; they take the same form.

O Canada is not a museum piece; we use it every day. It ought to be a song we can believe in. Senators should get out of the way.