Conservatives stand on guard for... whatever

[gjohnsonkoehn]

In its most recent Speech from the Throne, the government slipped a rather curious little announcement in amongst the more expected points. Apparently, one of the priorities for the government, important enough to make it into the official Throne Speech, was a review of the lyrics of Oh Canada; specifically, the phrase 'in all our sons command

Comments

[christinaathena]

Once you combined that with the fact that the anthem has been altered in living memory, in the 80's to include mention of god

Wait ... you guys added God to your anthem in the 80s? We added God to stuff, too, but that was back in the 50s.

[gjohnsonkoehn]

Yes, well, Oh Canada wasn't even legally our anthem until 1980. God Save the Queen and The Maple Leaf Forever were unofficial anthems from 1867, but we were still a colony at that point, and didn't have our own anthem then. Oh Canada was first sung in 1908, and at the time it was only in french. The first english translation didn't show up until 1908, and it didn't really take off until 1927, when it was performed at the Queen's Diamond Jubilee. It became a sort of de facto anthem when King George stood at attention for a performance of it in 1939, but right up to the 60's there were several versions floating around, none of them entirely definitive.

Only in 1980, with the National Anthem Act, did Oh Canada officially take pride of place, and it was that same act that added in the religious reference, 'God keep our land'.

Seriously, it's easy to forget, but Canada is a young country.

[christinaathena]

Ah, yeah. I keep thinking of Canada as starting back in 1867, but I forget that it was still an extension of Britain at that point.

[steelcaver]

I would guess it was a cheap trick to distract everyone from the prisoner abuse scandal.