‘O Canada, beloved Country, thou!
Hope’s holy wreath adorning thy young brow.’
So begins Wilfred Campbell’s 1909 English lyrics for Calixa Lavallée’s iconic chant nationale. Contrary to popular belief, several English versions of O Canada circulated in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, none with any claim to official recognition.
When Lavallée (1842-1891) composed his now-famous song in 1880, he used a French text written by Judge Adolphe-Basile Routhier. Once English Canada began to take note of the tune’s rising fame, poets and would-be poets of all sorts flocked to pen their own set of fanciful lyrics.
A quick search on Library and Archives Canada’s Sheet Music from Canada’s Past online database yields at least 10 English versions of Oh Canada from the early years of the 20th century.
As member of Parliament W.S. Fielding noted in 1920, “In French Canada ‘O Canada!’ is sung everywhere. In the English Provinces the Music is heard in our parks and theatres, but seldom are English words sung to it. Whatever the reason may be, none of the English translations seem to have taken hold of the popular fancy.”
Nor was O Canada the only national song vying for English Canada’s attention. Alexander Muir’s The Maple Leaf Forever (1867) remained a perennial favourite whose popularity matched, if not exceeded that of O Canada. Its opening lines “In days of yore from Britain’s shore/ Wolfe the dauntless hero came” were not exactly calculated to appeal to francophones. In an era of imperial flag-waving and brash pronouncements about Anglo-Saxon superiority, such concerns hardly bothered English Canadians.
Even the history of Lavallée’s original French version is more complicated than it would seem. Routhier was a political conservative and staunch defender of the Catholic faith, and these sensibilities shine through in lines such as “il sait porter la croix.” Lavallée meanwhile, emigrated to the United States a year after composing O Canada, frustrated by his inability to make a career for himself in his native land. The bitter Lavallée became a staunch supporter of Canada’s annexation to the American republic, and enjoyed expounding his beliefs to anyone who would listen.
All this is to say that ideas about our national anthem as a pristine, unalterable cultural document are historically unfounded.
Recently, a group of Canadian women (including such luminaries as Kim Campbell and Margaret Atwood) have started pushing for changes to the line “in all thy sons command” in favour of more gender-neutral terminology.
The federal parties have not shown much enthusiasm on this score. In particular, NDP leader Thomas Mulcair has flatly insisted that it is wrong to alter a fundamental part of our heritage. When one considers the anthem’s convoluted history, Mulcair’s reasoning suddenly seems disingenuous.
The necessary changes to our national anthem are small, but they are significant. In asking for a substitution of the word “sons,” advocates are demanding an anthem that recognizes women rather than treating them as omissions.
In The Second Sex, French philosopher Simone de Beauvoir criticized society’s habit of defining the feminine negatively in terms of a lack of the masculine: as silences, as darkness, as object, as Other. Male-centered wording seems innocuous, and indeed much of it was (and is) written without the express intent of degrading women. Words can be harmful, though, regardless of their author’s intentions. Multiplied thousands of times, these tiny exclusions collectively threaten to erase us from history.
That being said, altering politically incorrect historical documents is rarely a palatable prospect. Each case should be weighed carefully before following a “one size fits all” schema of modernization to 21st-century standards. When outdated texts offer a moment of discussion, a “teachable moment” about the previous inequalities under which people laboured in the past, then their controversial elements should certainly not be diluted. The national anthem is not one of those. It is a living cultural text, something children intone before the start of school each day, something crowds bellow at sporting events. I doubt that productive conversations about prejudice will occur every time our national anthem is sung.
Writing for the Canadian Courier in October 1912, J.E. Middleton observed that national songs should look to the future, not the past. “There is no National Spirit if we are merely proud of what we have, or of what our grandfathers have done. National Spirit is expressed in the declaration of what we ourselves are determined to do.”
Our definitions of nation are changing, and we should be prepared to embrace it. Indeed, in the case of Canadian women, this change is long overdue.
Madelaine Morrison is a doctoral candidate in the department of history at Carleton University and is completing a dissertation on musical activity in Ontario 1880-1920.