We asked for your thoughts on Canada’s anthem change.
A handful of Liberal MPs paying tribute to Canada’s newly — if not quite official — gender-neutral national anthem have hit a sour note with the Speaker of the House of Commons.
Mona Fortier, who succeeded the late Mauril Belanger in the riding of Ottawa-Vanier, led a brief singalong prior to question period to celebrate the change to the anthem, which won Senate approval Wednesday night.
Belanger had championed a bill to change “In all thy sons command” to “in all of us command,” but it languished for months in the upper chamber following his death in August 2016 before senators finally broke the logjam.
Your thoughts taken from our Facebook page:
“I will sing it how I know it. Just like the freedom to say Merry Christmas. I just wonder how much money it took to debate the issue, make the changes, and now enact those changes.” - Tara Dawn
“Totally unnecessary and I am not changing the way I sing it. A waste of money and now it opens a can of worms as more people come up with even more dumb ideas on how to further make changes. The song is part of our history and doesn’t need to be maneuvered to suit small interest groups.” - Tina Kuzmar Miller
“Only reason I slightly care is because the money used to push this whimsical and useless bill could have been spent on real issues for women. Support, education, shelters etc. Gender equality is great but there are a lot more issues in our country that need addressing for all people before we start wasting money on words. In fact I’d like all of you to pay me $100 per word for reading my little paragraph seeing as it’s the new norm to throw money around on words. Thank you” - Jarrod Ng
“FINALLY! I started changing the lyrics in grade 4 when I felt not included as a female. Language matters and it opens up the conversation for other issues.” - Heidi Adhofer
“Love this!! I can remember being a little girl in elementary school wondering why it was only in our sons command?! I am happy they finally made this change! We are ALL in charge of protecting and caring for this country ❤️” - Woven Freeman
“Our society has become too sensitive about everything. They should’ve left it as is. (Thanks god we don’t have dinosaurs in this planet anymore. People would die discussing if is ethically correct having a male dinosaur eating a female human)” - Edison Reis
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