Sons of Canada written out of gender-neutral anthem

CANADA will make its national anthem gender neutral after a lengthy attempt from equality campaigners.

The Canadian Senate has voted to change the line “in all thy sons command” to “in all of us command” in the English-language version of its anthem, O Canada.

The proposal has stirred a fierce debate in the country and 11 previous bills attempting to strip the reference to “sons” failed to pass.

The idea was first put forward in 2010 but was voted down by the Conservatives who held the majority in parliament at the time. Equality campaigners, including the author Margaret Atwood and former prime minister Kim Campbell, have since made fresh calls to implement the change.

The current bill was introduced in 2016 by Mauril Bélanger, a Liberal MP, who died later that year. It struggled to gain ground after staunch opposition from Conservative Senate members before finally passing on Wednesday.

After 18 months of debate, Frances Lankin, an independent senator, introduced a motion to end the debate and immediately vote on the bill. After the vote, she told Canada’s CBC News: “I’m very, very happy. This may be small, it’s about two words, but it’s huge... we can now sing it with pride knowing the law will support us in terms of the language. I’m proud to be part of the group that made this happen.”

The original French-language song dates back to the 19th century and does not have a reference to sons. The English version was penned in 1908.