From ‘Chant National’ to ‘O Canada’

(READ PART 1: Our National Anthem – A Gift From Quebec, HERE)

Identity Crisis 

The birth of Canada as a Dominion happened in 1867.

One of the ways that French-speaking Canadians in Quebec sought to hold on to their identity was through their annual Fete Nationale celebrations which was celebrated as St. Jean Baptiste Day. As a young nation with competing English-language and French-language customs, God Save the Queen and The Maple Leaf Forever were the ‘unofficial’ anthems of English Canada while the Chant National of 1880 (written by Routhier) was Quebec’s ‘unofficial’ anthem.

As a ‘Transplanted Canadian’ knowing about Quebec’s longstanding desire to be recognized as unique and special, I listened to The Maple Leaf Forever for the first time ever, while writing this article. I can see why the words would rub any Sovereigntist Quebecois the wrong way in those early days, so they would not want to sing THAT as a National Anthem. But the Freedom Convoy of 2022 proved that Sovereignty without Freedom rings very hollow. Quebecois, like any other Canadian want to live in freedom first. But I digress. 

In 1901, a group of school children sang ‘O Canada’ for the visiting Duke and Duchess of Cornwall (then King George V and Queen Mary). It appears that this was the first time the song was performed outside of Quebec. In 1906, a company in Toronto (Whaley and Royce) published the music with the FIRST English translation by Thomas Bedford Richardson. 

By 1908, it became standard procedure to sing it in French Catholic Schools, at official ceremonies, and was closely associated within francophone Quebec. In fact, it was performed for Quebec City’s 300th-anniversary celebrations. Also in 1908, in English Canada, the magazine ‘Collier’s Weekly’ held a competition to write new English lyrics for O Canada. The prevailing thought was, ‘Why not have an English version of what had become a patriotic version of this French Canadian song? After all, it had already been sung for 28 years’.  

In 1908, a Montreal lawyer, judge and poet – Robert Stanley Weir – wrote an English version of the Chant National that gained popular traction. He was born in Hamilton but moved to Montreal in his youth, where he studied law at McGill University. In 1913, Weir changed the words ‘thou dost in us command’ which was in his 1908 version to, ‘in all thy sons command’. He made revisions in 1913, 1914 and 1916 before dying in 1926.

Research shows that his descendants are not too happy with the tinkering that is happening to the words of ‘O Canada’ by the woke crowd among us.