"I think it just opens up a can of worms that we can look at each and every line of that national anthem," Vecchio said in an interview with CBC News. OTTAWA -- Liberal MP Mauril Belanger is losing his own singing voice but that's not stopping him from trying -- for a second time -- to change the English lyrics to O Canada to make the national anthem more gender neutral. Hence, soon after Parliament resumes work today, he intends to table a private member's bill that would alter two words, changing the second line of the anthem from true patriot love "in all thy sons command" to "in all of us command." Belanger said the objective of the bill is to "pay tribute to all the women who have worked and fought to build and shape the Canada that we know today ... to at long last honour their sacrifices and contributions." Women’s groups have been trying to change O Canada ever since it replaced God Save the Queen as the country’s official anthem in 1980. In 2010 the change appeared in the government’s legislative programme at the time but was dropped after backlash despite support from prominent figures, including novelist Margaret Atwood. David Kendall, a Canadian anthem expert who runs the nationalanthems.info website, said he expected the bill to pass, thanks to the Liberal Party’s majority in parliament.
– A Canadian politician is on a crusade to change the lyrics of O Canada—the Canadian national anthem—to give equal shrift to both genders, the Guardian reports. The third line of O Canada currently reads "True patriot love in all thy sons command." A bill introduced by liberal member of parliament Mauril Bélanger this week would change that to "in all of us command." "I want to pay tribute to all the women who have worked and fought to build and shape the Canada that we know today,” Bélanger says in a statement. “I want to at long last honor their sacrifices and contribution.” Who could oppose that? "I think it just opens up a can of worms that we can look at each and every line of that national anthem," conservative member of parliament Karen Vecchio tells CBC. "This is our national anthem, this is something that we've had for decades," Vecchio tells CBC. O Canada was composed in 1880 with French lyrics that didn't mention "thy sons," the Toronto Sun reports. When English speakers finally started singing it around 1900, the most common lyrics were "thou dost in us," highly similar to the proposed change. According to the Guardian, the lyrics weren't changed to "thy sons" until 1914. And other lyrics were changed to make them less repetitive when O Canada became the national anthem in 1980, the Sun reports. There have been 10 failed attempts to change "thy sons" since 1980. Bélanger himself introduced the same bill only to have it fail last April. But CBC reports it could fare better in Canada's new liberal government.