Happy Canada Day: A Revised New Improved National Anthem!
Back in 2018, I proposed a new national anthem for Canada, one which would replace all the obvious systemic oppression, sexism, Eurocentrism, religious exclusionism, and general social injustice implied in the original, with a non-triggering anthemic equivalent of a safe space, i.e., a song more in keeping with the spirit of Trudeaupia, aka the People’s Republic of Canada. I was quite pleased with the result, and it has quickly become the standard version of the anthem in my home, sung before all hockey games and self-righteousness festivals.
To read the full back-story on this new improved anthem and its creation, I refer you to my essay from last year’s Canada Day celebration.
For now, I merely reproduce my new version of the anthem, “Um, Canada” (as of February 2018), with the proposed new change indicated by a strikethrough:
(Sung to the tune of “O, Canada”)
Um, Canada,
Our plundered natives’ lands,
True equal pay for all who hold out hands.
Use Marxist words, give no offence,
Choose equal over free!
From far and wide,
To Canada, all cultures over me.
Government give whate’er we need!
Don’t force us to bear the fruit of our seed.
Don’t let us own our lives, because that’s greed.
And here, then, is my proposed new, updated version — one which, if possible, reaches even higher, shall we say, into the spirit of the erstwhile “true north,” formerly “strong and free” — an update which, like all good progressivism, takes its cues from changing realities on the ground, or rather in the ground:
