‘O Canada’ and the Two Solitudes James Bowden e should speak not of one “O Canada” but Des plus brillants exploits. Wof the two O Canadas, which represent Et ta valeur, de foi trempée, the two solitudes of English and French Canada. Protégera nos foyers et nos droits. The original French lyrics of Sir Adolphe-Basile Protégera nos foyers et nos droits. Routhier and the English lyrics of Sir Robert Stanley Weir bear no resemblance to each oth- Translation: er. The French lyrics celebrate the French Fact and commemorate a glorious crusade to Chris- O Canada, tianize North America with lines like “he knows land of our ancestors to carry the sword; he knows to carry the cross” Glorious deeds circle your brow and “valour steeped in faith”; in contrast, the For your arm knows how to wield the sword English lyrics appeal to a Loyalist patriotism, Your arm knows how to carry the cross; where the “true” in “True North” suggests the Your history is an epic virtues of steadfastness and loyalty. of brilliant deeds Parliament adopted Routhier’s original And your valour steeped in faith French text of “O Canada” and a modified ver- will protect our homes and our rights, sion of Weir’s English version of “O Canada” as Will protect our homes and our rights. the official national anthem through the Na- tional Anthem Act of 1980. The English lyrics Weir’s original poem from 1908 said: derived from the modifications that a Special Joint Committee of the House of Commons and O Canada! Senate had recommended to Weir’s poem in Our home, our native land. 1967. The two O Canadas, and the English trans- True patriot love thou dost in us command. lation of the French lyrics, are as follows: We see thee rising fair, dear land, The True North strong and free; O Canada! And Stand on guard, Our home and native land! O Canada, True patriot love in all thy sons command. We stand on guard for thee. With glowing hearts we see thee rise, The True North strong and free! From far and wide, In 1914, Weir endorsed an alteration that had O Canada, we stand on guard for thee. first appeared the previous year and changed God keep our land glorious and free! the line “True patriot love thou dost in us com- O Canada, we stand on guard for thee. mand” to “True patriot love in all thy sons O Canada, we stand on guard for thee. command.” “True patriot love thou dost in us command” is a second-person declarative sen- O Canada! tence written in a poetic style where the object Terre de nos aïeux, comes before the subject and verb. “Thou”, the Ton front est ceint de fleurons glorieux! second-person singular subject pronoun, refers Car ton bras sait porter l’épée, to Canada. In standard English syntax, the sen- Il sait porter la croix! tence would say, “Canada, thou dost command Ton histoire est une épopée true patriot love in us.” The lyrics “True patriot Spring/Summer 2017 The Dorchester Review 39 Return to Contents love in all thy sons command” retains the poetic lation; it died on the Order Paper, and she re- syntax, where the object comes before the sub- introduced it in 2003. Poy emphasized from the ject and verb, but this second-person impera- outset that her bill did not propose to alter the tive sentence contains only an implied subject, French “O Canada,” nor would it strike out the which would still be, “You, Canada.” As a de- reference to God, but would merely change “thy clarative sentence, it would say, “Canada, thou sons command” to “in all of us command” for commandest true patriot love in all thy sons.” the sake of being “inclusive of more than 50 per The phrase “True patriot love in all of us com- cent of the population.” Senator Poy praised oth- mand” follows the same grammatical structure er organizations for having already “chang[ed] as the line that it will replace, though the last their use of language in order to make everyone prepositional phrase shifts from the third per- feel that they belong in the community.” When son (“in all thy sons”), which sounds reverential, one of her fellow-Senators asked her why her to the first person plural (“in all of us”), which bill did not propose to alter the French lyrics, sounds wilful. Its declarative form betrays its Poy replied that she wouldn’t presume to do so prosaic and bland character: “Canada, you because she did not know the French language command true patriot love in all of us.” And it well enough. Senator Janis Johnson acknowl- certainly also sounds worse and less poetic. edged that “the French-language version of Bill C-210, An Act to Amend the National An- the lyrics ... contains non-inclusive language as them Act, could soon receive Royal Assent and well.” But she supported keeping the French lyr- alter the wording of the English version of “O ics intact on the grounds that “the first verse in Canada” in order, as its proponents say, to make French does not include any questionable lyrics the wording gender-neutral. As such, “True pa- from a gender perspective.” triot love in all thy sons command” will become “True patriot love in all of us command.” This bill has succeeded where its previous iterations, Senator Nicholas Taylor argued that Poy’s going back to at least the 35th Parliament (1994- bill did not go far enough in altering the Eng- 97), have all died on the Order Paper. However, lish lyrics. He argued that the bill should change it stands to reason that it will not be the last bill the phrase “Our home and native land” to “Our to alter the wording of the English lyrics. The home or native land,” which would better in- original French lyrics have been accorded the clude and acknowledge naturalized Canadian privilege of standing the test of time, but the citizens who were born in other countries and English lyrics will now be subject to continual for whom Canada was not, strictly speaking, modification. their native land. Senator Eymard Corbin char- acterized the French “O Canada” as “a religious and military text.” Senator Laurier LaPierre Bill C-210 and its antecedents added, “The words of the French anthem are Over the last twenty years, parliamentarians horribly threatening and frightening. They re- have introduced seven bills to alter “O Cana- flect the destruction of an entire way of life.” da,” and six of them pertained to replacing the They both opposed Poy’s bill. Finally, Senator English lyrics “True patriot love in all thy sons Joan Fraser provided the most cogent critique command” with “True patriot love in all of us by exposing the bill’s unequal treatment of the command.” The other called for creating a third English and French O Canadas. Why should the official bilingual amalgam anthem. Ultimately, English lyrics of “O Canada” not recognize other the wording “True patriot love in all of us com- groups, besides Canadian women, such as “ab- mand” first emanated from a motion of Toronto original people and immigrants and fisherman City Council in 1990, which also suggested that and bankers and software engineers?” Fraser “Our home and native land” be altered to “Our added, “French-speaking Canadians still sing, home and cherished land.” in “O Canada,” of the cross and the sword, [...] Senator Vivienne Poy, who retired from the not because they want to turn Canada into a upper house in 2012, introduced a bill in 2002 theocracy or military dictatorship, but because to make the same change as the current legis- these are the words that have been sung for gen- 40 The Dorchester Review Spring/Summer 2017 O Canada’s Two Solitudes erations.” it simpler.” Not content at merely expressing her In 2003, Senator Noel Kinsella tabled a bill relief, Malcolmson lavished the original French that would have made a bilingual amalgam of “O Canada” with great praise: “The French ver- the two O Canadas a third official anthem. His sion does have gender neutral language, and bill would have neatly side-stepped the issue it has since 1880. Its words have not changed of “True patriot love in all thy sons command” since then. The French are very evolved, very because the first two and one-half lines of this ahead of their time.” And by “French,” surely she bilingual anthem opted for the French lyr- meant French-Canadians and not the inhabit- ics. Senator Richard Kroft asked his colleague ants of France, who had nothing to do with whether his bill should consider altering “the writing Routhier’s lyrics. New Democratic MP French-language version of “O Canada,” partic- Christine Moore explained, in French: “When ularly in terms of gender and religious sensitiv- we talk about correcting the English version, we ity” because, in his view, Parliament could make are really talking about correcting an adapta- it “more broadly acceptable and reflective of the tion of the French version.” Parliament needed nature of his country as well.” Senator Kinsella to “correct” the imperfect English lyrics, which never answered whether he would favour alter- have presumably been wrong for 103 years, but ing the French lyrics, and his bill also died on the French lyrics pose no problem whatsoever. the Order Paper. And Liberal MP Greg Fergus explained that “Bill C-210 is focused on the English version” of “O he late Mauril Bélanger introduced Bill Canada” because “the French version is already TC-210 for Second Reading on 6 May 2016 gender neutral.” and declared that replacing “thy sons” with “of us” would finally “give Canada an inclusive an- them that respects what we were and what we Senator André Pratte expressed the most have become as a country” – as if this were the egregious double standards of the debate.