If it has been used as a de facto national anthem for years, the Ô Canada was officially adopted by the National Hymn Act June 27, 1980.
A few days later, the day of Canada’s Day, the law was proclaimed by Governor General Edward Schreyer during a public ceremony on the hill of the Parliament before thousands of Canadians, making the Ô Canada An official national symbol.
The song has actually existed for over a century, although its words have changed several times over the decades.
Commissioned to underline the celebrations of Saint-Jean-Baptiste in Quebec on June 24, 1880, the music of Ô Canada was composed by Calixa Lavallée and the French words were written by Adolphe-Basil Routhier.
If many English versions of the song have emerged over its growing popularity in the country, the best known English words were written in 1908 by Robert Stanley Weir, lawyer and judge.
The Government of Canada’s website indicates that the words of the official French version have been unchanged since 1880.
Cut couplets
The original version, however, included several other verses which were cut during its official adoption.
Weir’s English lyrics have undergone several modifications over the decades before becoming the current English version.
Some lines have been changed since its official adoption. In 2018, the end of the verse “True patriot love in all thy sons command“(Patriotic love commands each of your sons) has been modified to become”in all of us command»(Order each of us). The Canadian Encyclopedia indicates that discussions on the discriminatory aspects of the hymn, in particular the exclusive use of the word “sons(Son) started in the 1950s.
Former liberal deputy Mauril Bélanger, who campaigned for years for the word to be removed from words, presented a parliamentary bill in 2016 to modify the verse.
The project was approved in the House of Commons under the name of Bill C-2110 A month later by 225 votes to 74. It was not until 2018, after several debates in the Senate and the death of Mr. Bélanger, that the law on force.
The new unsafely words received mixed criticism and conservative senators abstained during the final vote in 2018.
Although the original manuscript of “Ô Canada” no longer exists, there are two copies of the first edition. One is kept in the Quebec Seminar Archives and the other at the University of Montreal.
