It is clear that the general public around the world is becoming increasingly impatient with the establishment and out of touch media and politicians more insistent on furthering their own agendas than the will of the people.
The epidemic of political correctness has reached absurd proportions and people are getting sick of it. Take the absurdity of Justin Trudeau and the Liberals changing the wording of our cherished national anthem to a gender-neutral version as an example.
It would have been entirely possible to honour dying Liberal MP Mauril Belanger with an appropriate legacy for his years’ served in government without hastily pushing through his ill-conceived private member’s bill with a false sympathy for his declining health and virtually no consultation with, or consideration of the wishes of, the citizens of Canada.
In the absence of any pressing outcry from the general public for change to our anthem and much more pressing priorities such as the economy, high unemployment, rising deficits and national security the government would be hard pressed to explain the rationale of rushing this bill through.
Many of the advocates for changing the wording of our anthem bought into the false narrative that “in all thy sons command” was somehow discriminatory against women and therefore “sexist.”
This is nothing more than juvenile reasoning ignoring a certain poetic language of the past where “sons” included “daughters” and was in no way meant to discriminate. So now we are left with the lyrics “in all of us command” replacing “in all our son’s command” and a sloppy, ungrammatical and embarrassing national anthem as a second-rate token of appeasement.
Tom Flanagan’s words are most appropriate. “Most of all, it’s a bad idea to start rewriting national anthems and other national symbols every generation in response to passing trends in public opinion.
Once you start, the atheists will want to get God out, and the pacifists will object to standing on guard, and aboriginal activists will want to know who owns this native land.”
Gerald HallNanoose Bay
