Canada now has a gender neutral national anthem after Senate passes bill
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The Senate finally passed a bill that renders the national anthem gender neutral Wednesday despite the entrenched opposition of some Conservative senators.
The House of Commons overwhelmingly passed a private member’s bill in 2016 that would alter the national anthem by replacing “in all thy sons command” with “in all of us command” as part of a push to strike gendered language from O Canada.
The bill, first introduced by the late Liberal MP Mauril Bélanger, now must receive royal assent by the Governor General before it officially becomes law.
Independent Ontario Sen. Frances Lankin, the bill’s sponsor in the upper house, said she was elated after the bill’s passage. Her efforts to get the bill passed were stymied by some Conservative senators who thought Parliament had no business tinkering with the words of a song written by a man long dead.
Independent Quebec Sen. Chantal Petitclerc, a former paralympian who has been awarded 14 gold medals for wheelchair racing, said she was “jealous” of those athletes headed to PyeongChang for the winter games, as they will finally be able to sing a gender neutral anthem — an option that wasn’t open to her when she competed internationally in the 1990s and early 2000s.
After 18 months of debate in the Red Chamber, Lankin introduced a controversial motion in the Senate Tuesday evening that would effectively shut down debate and immediately move to a vote on the bill.
Conservative senators were furious that Manitoba Sen. Don Plett, who has long opposed the bill, was not able to speak in opposition to such a motion. They said it was an affront to democracy to use these time-limiting motions to silence the opposition.
“When a majority of individuals decide to shut down discourse in this place, democracy dies. We need to be very wary of tools that muzzle debate … that is the fundamental right you have, to get up and speak on any piece of legislation, none of us have the right to take that away,” Conservative Sen. Leo Housakos, himself a former speaker, said ahead of the vote.
Plett said Wednesday that a change such as altering the national anthem should be put to a referendum.
Conservatives boycotted a vote on Sen. Lankin’s motion and thus missed the final vote on the bill, which passed on a voice vote as only Independent and Liberal senators — who were largely in favour of the change — were present in the chamber. Although, some “neas” could be heard coming from a handful of those senators.
At least one Tory senator accused Senate Speaker George Furey — who was appointed as a Liberal by Jean Chrétien but now identifies as non-affiliated in his non-partisan role as Speaker — of conspiring with Independent and Liberal senators to ignore Conservative senators who wanted to speak against the bill.
Shameful, anti-democratic behaviour by #Trudeau-appointed senators, including #SenCA Speaker, as they shut down legitimate debate in Chamber
More to come.
Article source: http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/01/hesham-genena-injured-kidnap-attempt-lawyers-180127171745705.html
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