It’s hard to distinguish the boundaries of political correctness today. Last week’s furor over the 1940’s song Baby Its Cold Outside made me think about our National Anthem. We recently changed the phrase “In all our sons command” to “In all of us command”, a change that was actually unsuccessfully attempted to have happen by a female Liberal Senator back in 2002. I talked about this that year reminding us the words had already been changed from “Thou dost in us command” written in 1908. We also took out an extra “We stand on guard”, replacing with “From Far and Wide” when the official version came out in 1980. The French version of our anthem hasn’t changed as far as I know and it’s different than the English version. When you hear the bilingual anthem sung at national events it begins with the words “O Canada! Terre de nos aieux, ton front est ceint de fleurons Glorieux!” which translated says “O Canada! Land of our forefathers. Your brow is wreathed with a glorious garland of flowers “. The French O Canada goes on to say, “Because your arm can wield the sword, it is ready to carry the cross. Your history is an epic, of the most brilliant exploits. Your valour steeped in faith, will protect our homes and our rights. Will protect our homes and our rights”. All quite different from the English version but I guess you could draw some comparison in the last two lines with “We stand on guard for thee”.

That’s Coffeetalk. I’m Vic Dubois.