Ugh, Canada

Roadkill 124 Comments

Or, as one reader emailed, “Are these guys on acid???????????”
No, they’re not. Acid induces temporary psychosis, not terminal stupidity.
(That, and it outlines everything in your world with neon, not that I’d know anything about that.)
From the comments – “Does this scream HEAD FAKE to anyone else?”. Yeah, it does.
A terminally stupid head fake.

“As far as I can tell, the entire song is a giant Human Rights Commission complaint waiting to happen.”

124 Replies to “Ugh, Canada”

  1. I think changing the text of a song is being disrespectful to the author. A few years ago, I suggested to a Liberal MP that we change the red bars on the Canadian flag to blue bars.
    My reasoning= A: From sea to shining sea.
    B: in memory of our French, English and American settlers who opened up the west.
    My Liberal friend replied that the flag was “cast in stone.” Ok, so why is our anthem open for discussion?

  5. Studying gender neutrality in a song that contains exactly one single word referring to gender? Sounds like a good inside joke to me. I think the PMO is providing a distraction for the opposition to ruminate over, while at the same time having a little chuckle at the expense of the hyper-PC crowd. In the meantime, here’s hoping the “son/dost” controversy is to distract from a merciless, lay-down-the-gauntlet cost-cutting budget. One can hope.

  7. “I think changing the text of a song is being disrespectful to the author.” – Joe Citizen (11:08)
    Joe, the Conservatives are proposing to undo a change that was made to Stanley Weir’s original, which was written in 1908. They’re proposing going back to the original line, as Weir wrote it.

  8. Typical Harper. 6000 word throne speech and all you will hear about is the national anthem. It will be a frosty Friday before you hear any serious debate from any of the 3 parties. I’m ignoring the Bloc.

  9. This is going to make the heads of traditionalists like explode.
    Don’t change what’s established, but…
    Go back to what was established before, but…
    You have to draw the line somewhere, but…
    [BOOM]

  10. Or we could go with the real lyrics for the Maple Leaf Forever:
    In days of yore, from Britain’s shore,
    Wolfe, the dauntless hero, came
    And planted firm Britannia’s flag
    On Canada’s fair domain.
    Here may it wave, our boast and pride
    And, joined in love together,
    The thistle, shamrock, rose entwine
    The Maple Leaf forever!
    Chorus:
    The Maple Leaf, our emblem dear,
    The Maple Leaf forever!
    God save our Queen and Heaven bless
    The Maple Leaf forever!
    At Queenston Heights and Lundy’s Lane,
    Our brave fathers, side by side,
    For freedom, homes and loved ones dear,
    Firmly stood and nobly died;
    And those dear rights which they maintained,
    We swear to yield them never!
    Our watchword evermore shall be
    “The Maple Leaf forever!”
    Chorus
    Our fair Dominion now extends
    From Cape Race to Nootka Sound;
    May peace forever be our lot,
    And plenteous store abound:
    And may those ties of love be ours
    Which discord cannot sever,
    And flourish green o’er freedom’s home
    The Maple Leaf forever!
    Chorus
    On merry England’s far famed land
    May kind heaven sweetly smile,
    God bless old Scotland evermore
    and Ireland’s Em’rald Isle!
    And swell the song both loud and long
    Till rocks and forest quiver!
    God save our Queen and Heaven bless
    The Maple Leaf forever!
    Chorus

  11. So Prime Minister Harper’s government has said that they want to conserve the original wording of the national anthem by returning to it’s gender-neutral liberty, and the conservative extremists and the liberal extremists are both unhappy. I love it! What a species !-)

  12. Make the French language gender neutral. Then we can talk about changing the anthem.

  14. The Tories are on the good ship Titanic…perhaps they are just tired of governing…what a bizarre speech.

  15. I never liked O Canada since we had to sing it every morning before we started classes. I also dislike God Save the Queen because we had to sing it every day at the end of school.
    Although The Maple Leaf Forever has a moving melody, I detest its British centric lyrics and the maple leaf symbolism. Both are too Ontario minded for me. I am a proud Western Canadian who does not want to be British. I also don’t want to exalt a maple leaf which I never see unless I go to Ontario.

  17. Karl:
    When MLF was written Cape Race was not a part of Canada.
    Like the archway entrance to the House Of parliament having a blank space for a coat of arms on the easternmost side when it was built, as a Newfoundlander I find it a bit offensive.

  19. I heard about this when my husband came stomping mad into the kitchen using expletives after listening to the CTV story on this earlier today. He usually ignores politics altogether, he considers government to be completely and utterly corrupt and a waste of ones breath, but this really got his ire up.
    You would think that after the outrage and flood of negative comments on just about every Canadian blog out there during the Olympic opening ceremonies when the young female singer changed the anthem, that the powers that be would have clued in that there are some things Canadians consider sacred and the National Anthem is definitely one of them.
    But seriously folks, if it has be done to the Holy Bible, it will be done to National Anthems. I purchased a bible for $10 bucks thinking it a good deal, I very soon realized that there was something quite peculiar about this particular version. In the translation section it stated that this was a gender neutral Bible – I kid you not. I was so incensed that I fired off a letter to the publishers pointing out to them that they, in trying to be gender neutral, had changed the meaning to such a degree that several of the verses were unrecognizable to me.
    Reality is turning out to be is worse than anything Orwell imagined.

  20. Well Harper seems to have distracted us from the issue at hand. Which is, how does a conservative government forget about conservative values and follow the lib and dip agenda into mega deficit?
    If the libs win the next election and eliminate the deficit through lib means by higher taxes and transfer and military cuts, the conservatives wont be reelected for at least 20 years. It will be the libs that seem to know how to be fiscally responsible and the only thing that will bring them down is their own internal corruption.
    Harper is starting to look like Ed Stelmach and that is scary.

  21. BTW there are no Maple Trees in Western Canada, unless you order one from a nursery and plant it. Canada’s symbol would need to be a pine cone to accurately represent all of Canada.

  22. BTW Maple Trees do are not native to Western Canada, if you come accross one in one of our parks its because it was ordered from a nursery and planted. Canada’s symbol would need to be a pine cone to accurately represent all of Canada.

  24. I’m sorry, but (almost) everyone is grabbing what they THINK is the ball, but isn’t, and are running out of bounds with it, and out of the stadium, without realizing they don’t have the actual ball in their hands.
    No-one (1:31), what I’m about to say is not a case of me picking on you, I’m just using your comment because the thoughts you express nicely sum up, in a clear way, what others are saying as they get their monkey-brains fired up to the point where they’re getting the facts wrong.
    You wrote:
    “You would think that after the outrage and flood of negative comments on just about every Canadian blog out there during the Olympic opening ceremonies when the young female singer changed the anthem, that the powers that be would have clued in that there are some things Canadians consider sacred and the National Anthem is definitely one of them.”
    Hello: the Conservatives are proposing going back to the wording of the original anthem, which was since changed. You mention the Bible, No-one, and that you bought some crap re-written version that “changed the verses.” Well, the anthem we sing, the one that you and seemingly everyone else are calling the original, is the one that “changed the verses”; it’s the equivalent of the rewritten bible you’re – quite justly – deriding.
    Complaining about the Conservative proposal to return to the original, historic anthem is the equivalent of claiming that any changes to the newer, rewritten, gender-neutral bible you referred to is a desecration of the original. The comments in this thread (most of them) don’t make sense, except in terms of pure, monkey-brain anger overriding all sense of logic. In what alternate universe could changing the bowdlerized version of something back to the original be deemed a self-evident desecration of the original?
    In the same way that people tend to treat the climatological conditions of their childhood as being the eternal measuring stick – and we all know where that leads – the outraged people on this thread are treating what is in fact the updated version of the original anthem as being the ancient pillar of anthem-dom, and treating the original 1908 anthem, which the Conservatives are proposing we go back to, as some outrageous, touchy-feely update and a desecration of tradition.
    Aaaargh.
    I’m sorry, but your pitchforks are pointing the wrong way……and you’re spearing your own frontal lobes.
    COAB….specifically, a 350HPB.

  26. Sorry, No-one, but your 1:31 and your 1:55 comments seem completely at odds with each other. I’m confused.
    In the interest of brevity I’ll just say that I disagree with your 1:31 comment, and agree with your 1:55 comment.

  28. No-one; Sorry, but you’re absolutely wrong. Every kid that went to school in B.C. will remember collecting Maple leaves in the fall.
    Aceraceae (Maple Family) Native to B.C.
    Acer circinatum (Vine Maple)
    Acer glabrum (Douglas Maple)
    Acer macrophyllum (Big-leaf Maple)
    Acer negundo (Manitoba Maple)
    The Big-leaf Maple is almost as common as Alder.

  30. I’m right with you, Ian. I’d love to hear 18,000 hockey fans singing that before a game.
    I wish I was joking.

  31. At first, as a Canuck who was around last time they screwed with the lyrics, I thought it was cool to go back to the original words. However, it dawned on me that it had nothing to do with going back to our “roots” as it were but rather a politically correctness thing. I’m still hoping it is nothing more than a head fake to get the opposition whiners off of the important legislation, whatever that is.

  32. Scrap the whole thing and use the Hockey night in Canada theme. Everyone knows it, loves it, and most people don’t know the words to the present one anyway.

  33. Ian Vaughan: “If we’re gonna meddle, I’d go for Cohen’s ‘Bird on a wire’.”
    If we’re going into Cohen’s Canon, then I’d go for “The Future,” which just about sums up where we’re all headed.

  35. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: you guys voted for, and have been supporting, a younger, and heavier, Jean Chretien.
    It’s been entertaining watching you guys twist yourselves into pretzels, trying to justify Harper’s Liberal government over the past four years. If this doesn’t convince, nothing will.

  36. How about ‘sods’ as in ‘..all our sods command..’ or is that to anglo centric old sod? Baring that i’m with singnaller222 on the HNIC theme song.

  37. Kaplan, I don’t think you get the deeper meaning here. There’s more to this than meets the eye, unlike Chretien’s thuggish rule which was what you saw, was what you got: pure, unadulterated corruption.
    Brown paper bags in Italian restaurants, anyone?

  40. Since we’re moving to Gaia worship anyway, let’s just change it to “Sun’s”

  41. we can render the Maple Leaf Forever gender neutral by singing it in 12 year old boy style circa 1966
    “Wolfe the donkless hero …..”
    how much more gender neutral can you get then that?

  44. Harper isn’t conservative, at best he’s a Liberal Lighter or Diet Con but this takes the cake his head is firmly ensconced up his arsehole.

  45. Logdrivers is a good choice there Vit but being the proud Canadian I am I prefer Alberta Bound.

  46. Is the crime of treason not still subject to capital punishment in Canada?
    Nope, Chretien had that changed.

  47. To clarify, I do not have a problem with the 1908 version, what I do have a problem with is using gender neutrality as the reason for change.
    Also, I was referring to the species of Maple Tree that syrup is made from. To my knowledge we don’t make syrup in AB, SK, or BC. Where I live in BC, we have one lone Maple Tree in a park. However, I stand corrected; apparently there are maple trees in every province, I lived in AB for thirty years and can honestly say I did not see a single native Maple Tree.
    I do not agree with the logic that changing the the entire Holy Bible to show gender neutrality is on the same level as changing son’s to dost in the national anthem.
    Link to info on Gender Neutral Bible Versions. http://www.bible-researcher.com/links12.html
    According to Wikipedia, Weir’s 1908 lyrics consisted of the following three stanzas. A fourth stanza was added later.
    O Canada! Our home, our native land,
    True patriot love thou dost in us command.
    We see thee rising fair, dear land,
    The True North strong and free;
    And stand on guard, O Canada,
    We stand on guard for thee.
    Refrain
    O Canada! O Canada!
    O Canada. We stand on guard for thee.
    O Canada! Where Pines and Maples grow,
    Great prairies spread and lordly rivers flow.
    Thou art the land, O Canada,
    From East to Western sea,
    The land of hope for all who toil,
    The land of liberty.
    Refrain
    O Canada! Beneath thy shining skies,
    May stalwart sons and gentle maidens rise;
    And so abide, O Canada,
    From East to Western sea,
    Where e’er thy pines and prairies are,
    The True North strong and free.
    Translation of French lyrics
    O Canada!
    Land of our ancestors,
    Thy brow is wreathed with a glorious
    garland of flowers.
    As in thy arm ready to wield the sword,
    So also is it ready to carry the cross.
    Thy history is an epic
    Of the most brilliant exploits.
    Thy valour steeped in faith
    Will protect our homes and our rights
    Will protect our homes and our rights
    Actually, I kinda like the French version myself.
    I know now more about our National Anthem than I ever thought I would need to know.

  48. “I never liked O Canada since we had to sing it every morning before we started classes. I also dislike God Save the Queen because we had to sing it every day at the end of school.
    Although The Maple Leaf Forever has a moving melody, I detest its British centric lyrics and the maple leaf symbolism. Both are too Ontario minded for me. I am a proud Western Canadian who does not want to be British. I also don’t want to exalt a maple leaf which I never see unless I go to Ontario.”
    Oh dear, what a diatribe. Someone’s cranky this morning.
    Never mind, of course, that without the British in our history, there’d be no Western Canada.

  49. “Actually, I kinda like the French version myself.”
    Well, it is the original version; the anthem did start life as a French-Canadian song to be sung on Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day.
    And no one has yet seen fit to fiddle with the lyrics because they’re not “PC” enough. Horrors, it actually mentions “la croix”! I’ve no idea how the grim secular modernists who dictate our mores these days let that one slip past them.
    Of course, both versions of the anthem do have one major flaw: neither mentions gays and lesbians.
    No doubt we’ll be raking Jason Kenney over the coals for that.

  50. I celebrate Dominion Day, and I won’t sing Trudeau’s anthem. I’m still mad about the flag. Tradition has value.

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