Canadian anthem goes gender neutral

CANADA is poised to re-write its national anthem to make it ‘gender neutral’.

Politicians backed a law to amend the English language version of the anthem to remove a reference to ‘sons’.

Instead of the phrase ‘in all thy sons command’, patriotic Canadians will sing ‘in all of us command’ – providing the bid is approved by the country’s governor general.

Canada’s Senate passed the legislation to make ‘O Canada’ reflect modern attitudes towards language that is regarded by some as sexist. The bill had stalled in the Senate as the opposition Conservatives fought its passage. But after years of passionate debate, it finally won Senate approval on Wednesday.

The change was proposed by late Liberal MP Mauril Belanger, who was diagnosed with motor neurone disease and did not live to see the measure passed.

‘O Canada’ dates from 1908 and was officially adopted as the national anthem in 1980.

Twelve previous attempts to remove the reference to ‘sons’ from the anthem had failed.