Proposed change to O Canada hits snag

A month before Canada Day, 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, an independent who was appointed by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. The lyric in O Canada has until now been “true patriot love, in all thy sons command.”

Because the bill’s original sponsor, Mauril Bélanger, 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.

“Given the circumstances, I have every reason to believe that the House of Commons would allow for a change in sponsorship,” Plett said. “For a senator to suggest that I would purposely take advantage of the death of a former colleague is disheartening.”

Bélanger, the longtime MP for Ottawa-Vanier, died from ALS last August. His struggle with the disease was public, as was his championing of the anthem bill, which passed Commons last June but which still must be approved by the Senate.

Plett said he believes the anthem is already inclusive in its present form, 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.