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Interim Toronto councillor pitching for gender-neutral ‘O Canada’ lyrics

Interim Toronto councillor pitching for gender-neutral ‘O Canada’ lyrics

An interim Toronto city council is seeking to make her mark on the country by reviving a stalled campaign that would change the lyrics of “O Canada” to a gender-neutral form.

Ceta Ramkhalawansingh, who was named an interim city councillor in July after Adam Vaughan stepped down to run federally for the Liberal Party of Canada, will introduce a motion at a Monday council meeting seeking to have Toronto council request that the federal government change the lyrics to "O Canada".

The motion in question calls reads like this:

This Motion seeks to reaffirm City Council’s continued leadership and advocacy on gender inclusion by making O Canada gender inclusive.

...

To further recognize the rights of women to be represented in all aspects of society, women’s organizations and civil rights groups across Canada have endorsed the “Sing All Of Us” campaign which seeks to substitute the words “our sons” with “of us” in “O Canada”.

“It’s my last city council meeting and I’m a feminist,” Ramkhalawansingh told the Toronto Star. “If you go back and look at the city’s history you will see the City of Toronto has provided leadership on many gender equality issues.”

According to the motion, "O Canada" was first written in 1908 and included the line "thou dost in us command." The lyrics were changed several times over the years and set in stone on July 1, 1980, with the passing of the National Anthem Act. Those lyrics include the line "in all thy sons commands."

There have been nine private member's bills since then seeking to change those lyrics to something gender neutral.

The Toronto motion would need a two-thirds majority to pass, meaning it has a steep hill to climb to be successful. As noted above, this is the last council meeting Ramkhalawansingh will attend and the last before the city's municipal election in October, in which she is not seeking election.

This means that at the very least she has used her temporary status as a city councillor to push forward with a message she truly believes in. You could get a lot worse from a city councillor.

On the other hand, this is not the first time the matter has been brought forward, and it has never gone anywhere in the past.

The previously-launched "Sing all of us" campaign has the support of the Canadian Advisory Council on the Status of Women, Olivia Chow and several Canadian celebrities.

Author Margaret Atwood and former prime minister Kim Campbell are among those who support a similar "Restore our Anthem" campaign, lauched last year.

The Conservative government has actually considered changing the lyrics before. In 2010, Prime Minister Stephen Harper mused about introducing the gender-neutral lyrics but backed off almost immediately. A spokesperson for Prime Minister Stephen Harper said there was "overwhelming" public opposition to the change.

When Austria took steps to introduce a gender-neutral anthem in 2011, the Prime Minister's Office stated they would not re-open the Canadian debate.

Most recently, a 2013 public opinion survey found that two-thirds of English-speaking Canadians opposed changing the lyrics from "in all her sons command" to "in all of us command".

"It appears that, in the case of cultural touchstones like national anthems, historical inertia trumps gender equity," Forum Research president Lorne Boznioff said at the time.

A year later, and perhaps nothing has changed. But Ramkhalawansingh had exactly one change to take her shot. And she's taking it. We'll see what happens next week.

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