New anthem
Our federal government has announced plans to declare Louis Riel a father of Confederation, presumably because of the rumpuses he kicked up in the 1870s and 1880s.
Now if they could only figure out some way to unhang him, our country would be a masterpiece of political correctness.
No, wait, there’s something else. We have to rewrite some of our patriotic songs. Just as the churches are rewriting hymns to take out hims, we must produce anthems for today’s realities.
We can’t march about singing: “Wolfe, the dauntless hero, came and planted firm Britannia’s flag on our fair domain.” It’s been half a century since schools flew the Union Jack. For about 20 years we waved the Red Ensign, another flag with a British base. Then on Feb. 15, 1965, Queen Elizabeth, on the advice of Lester Pearson’s government, proclaimed the red maple leaf flag as Canada’s official national bunting.
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The trouble with making a dauntless hero out of Wolfe is that Canadians boast of being peaceful folk. Wolfe was a militarist, an officer who had helped wipe out the claymore-waving soldiers of Bonnie Prince Charlie at Culloden. Subsequently he led his redcoats troops at Quebec City and routed the forces of Montcalm.
For you intrepid patriotic songwriters let’s have some rousing anthems about Judy Rebick and the status of women, about Greenpeace bravely saving the whales, about Thiessen standing at the bastion defending the dollar, about a thousand maids with a thousand needles stitching up the hole in the ozone layer.
First, let’s find something that rhymes with Rebick.
