Canada’s Senate has voted to make the country’s national anthem gender-neutral, ending decades of efforts to replace the phrase “all thy sons” with “all of us.”

A date for the change will be set once the nation’s governor general gives her expected “royal assent.” The House passed the bill in 2016. "Now, the bill must receive the royal assent of the Governor General - the representative of the British monarch in Canada - in order to officially become law.The current wording of 'O Canada' has existed since 1908, when poet Robert Stanley Weir translated the French lyrics. / True patriot love in all thy sons command” to: “True patriot love in all of us command.”

Since 1980, when “O Canada” became the nation’s anthem, 12 bills have been introduced in the House to replace the word “sons.”

“I’m very, very happy,” the bill’s Senate sponsor, Independent Ontario Sen. Frances Lankin, told the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. “There’s been 30 years-plus of activity trying to make our national anthem, this important thing about our country, inclusive of all of us. The new bill was first introduced in 2016 by Liberal MP Mauril Bélanger, who had been diagnosed with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease) and who died later that year. The Canadian Senate passed a bill Wednesday to change the lyrics of its national anthem so that they will be “gender-neutral.”

The bill would replace the lyrics “in all thy sons command” with “in all of us command,” according to CBC News.
The Canadian Senate agrees with the House of Commons to make the Canadian national anthem, "O Canada", gender neutral. The second line of the song will now read "in all of us" instead of "in all thy sons."