The National Anthem

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Anthem, Canada., CBC, EXPO 67, Montreal, Quebec City

This morning on CBC Radio 1, Michael Enright on Sunday Edition had a program all about Canada. The first segment was about our National Anthem O Canada, the second part about EXPO 67 which was held 50 years ago in Montreal, the most successful World  Exhibition ever held in the World, something I remember well I was 11 yrs old. How wonderful that was, one of my best childhood memories. The third segment was about how there his 3 founding Nations in Canada, the Indigenous, the French, the English and how we are finally coming to understand that fact.

He had Musicologist and Historian, Robert Harris to explain it all and how wonderful it was to hear. http://www.cbc.ca/listen/shows/sunday-edition/episode/13062323

Just wonderful, Robert Harris explained so many secrets about our National Anthem, the opening two stanzas of O Canada is taken from Mozart’s March of the Priest from the Opera Magic Flute. How wonderful is that given that our Country was born from a series of drinking and dancing parties here in Charlottetown and Quebec City held by the Fathers of Confederation in 1864.

The second incredible secret is that the National Anthem of Canada was written/com posed for the Saint Jean Baptiste Society in June of 1880. A French Nationalist Anthem to be sung at a Convention of French Canadians who had gathered from all over North America in Quebec City. The lyrics are about the French in North America and the music is martial, reference to God, the King (France) and our ancestors in this land.

How did it become the National Anthem of Canada? Harris explained that in 1902 King Edward VII was visiting Canada and the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir in Toronto decided that they needed to sing an Anthem about Canada and not the Royal Anthem, God Save the King. So they arrange for a quick translation of the lyrics into English to sing for the Royal visit, the result was not very good and was difficult, cumbersome to sing, nothing like the French version. A few years later in 1906 Judge and poet Robert Stanley Weir wrote the English lyrics to O Canada, he changed them again in 1908, 1909, 1913. For a long time we had the 1921 lyrics which most English speaking Canadians know.

We will have to wait 1964 and the debate on the New Canadian Flag in Parliament to have another debate about making O Canada the Official National Anthem.  But that did not work out, to much opposition, too many English Canadians wanted to keep the Royal Anthem and having to swallow a new flag to replace the old Red Ensign was too much politically. Again in 1967 and 1968 Parliament tried and failed and again in 1976 and again in 1980 at the time of the first referendum on Quebec Independence. This time it worked and O Canada became our Official Anthem. Though many Canadians had taken it as the Official Anthem for many previous decades.

Currently a Bill in the Senate C-210 would amend one sentence of the English Lyrics of O Canada from IN ALL THEY SONS COMMAND to IN ALL OF US COMMAND. This to satisfy the Feminists in Canada. It would appear that many do not know that the English lyrics have been amended in the past many times, this includes the media who are very confused on the topic. Senators who hold a more traditional point of view oppose any change.

All this to say that the radio program was most interesting on the history of our Anthem, they also played several various versions from 1908, 1910,1927 and a famous one by Roger Doucet, tenor who for years would sing the National Anthem in both French and English before the beginning of a Hockey game at the old Forum in Montreal. He changed 2 words of the Anthem in 1979 before a game, at first the crowd in the Forum is silent not quite understanding what went on and then suddenly the reaction. The words, inserted by Doucet were Our Rights and Liberty, a reference to the upcoming Quebec Referendum and the demands of French speaking Canadians.

Nothing is ever simple in Canada. My favourite rendition c.1960 is the one with the Orchestre Symphonique de Montreal with Maestro Wilfrid Pelletier and chorus sung in French. It is quite beautiful.

 

Ô Canada! Terre de nos aïeux,
Ton front est ceint de fleurons glorieux!
Car ton bras sait porter l’épée,
Il sait porter la croix!
Ton histoire est une épopée
Des plus brillants exploits.
Et ta valeur, de foi trempée,
Protégera nos foyers et nos droits,
Protégera nos foyers et nos droits.
Sous l’œil de Dieu, près du fleuve géant,
Le Canadien grandit en espérant.
Il est né d’une race fière,
Béni fut son berceau.
Le ciel a marqué sa carrière
Dans ce monde nouveau.
Toujours guidé par sa lumière,
Il gardera l’honneur de son drapeau,
Il gardera l’honneur de son drapeau.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Aujourd’hui

Tags

2017, Birthday, Charlottetown, life, Quebec City, Sainte-Foy, us, Will

Well today is the day, bright and Sunny Spring day here in Charlottetown.

For lunch we had Lobster sandwiches, pretty good stuff. Tonight is the party, special cake made by my pastry chef neighbour, food made by our friend Pico who lives a few a few doors from us who is an amazing cook from Senegal. Beautiful fresh flowers, because  it is Spring, they are Tulips. Will also made two patés, one Salmon and one chicken livers with currants, quite good and lots of bubbly for my friends to drink.

1962 going to school first day. My Mom took that photo. 

Flying to Rome some 52 years later, notice the hair cut is pretty much the same.

No that is not water I am drinking.

What an amazing life I have had, quite thankful on this Birthday for my good fortune.

Also thankful for Will and the 39 years we have had so far together.

to clarify the record

Tags

#FakeNews, AK47, Alexandre Bisonnette, Canada., Fascism, FOX News, massacre, Quebec City, Sainte-Foy, Terrorism, Trudeau, Trump

 

I believe that I need to write this entry to clarify the record given that FOX News and other like minded news outlets in the USA including the White House are spreading #Fakenews on what actually happened in Quebec City last night at the Islamic Centre and Mosque.

It is important to set context in what actually happened last night. The City of Quebec is very old in terms of North American settlement, founded in 1608 and was the Capital of the French Empire in North America until 1763. It then became the Capital of British North America until we responsible government was established in 1867 in Canada and the new Capital became Ottawa.

Quebec City is a small town, a big village, every one knows everybody, its gossipy, it is also fairly conservative in terms of politics. There are the old families and the others, there is a divide between the Upper Town and Lower Town. My family lived in Quebec City in Sainte-Foy and then Sillery in the 1960’s I have a lot of relatives there since 1662 when my family first arrived in Canada.

Immigrants to Quebec City, they have been there since day one, nothing new. I remember when I was 6 years old that our family pharmacist was a Syrian Refugee that was in 1962, JFK was President then. Jews in Quebec City they go back to the French Colonial days of the 18th century, blacks also most came from France. Though Quebec or New France was suppose to be a Roman Catholic enclave of the French Colonial Empire, there were plenty of Protestants or Huguenots fleeing the wars of religion in Europe. There were also back then 10 men for each women, need I say more…

So the presence of a diverse population and a multiplicity of religions and culture is nothing new. In the last 50 years the Provincial Government of Quebec has recruited almost exclusively immigrants from French Speaking Arabic mostly Muslim countries, Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, Lebanon, Syria and in Africa mostly from the former French Colonial Colonies, like Cote D’Ivoire, Sénégal, Cameroun, Benin etc…

So yes there are lots of Muslims in Quebec who happen to speak French and are usually well educated. Unfortunately and this is the very sad part, for the last 50 years we have had a lot of xenophobia and racism fostered by politicians on a nativist and populist line to gather votes and money, they will stoke fear of the other. The political line is about race, language and pure French ethnic stock not tainted by inter-marriage with none French ethnic background. Several commentators on the radio in Quebec City are also making a career by offering daily hateful diatribes against anyone who is not #purelaine. We also had a former Prime Minister Steven Harper who loved to single out Arabs and Muslims for his own hate filled speeches, trying to pass himself as the Canadian Donald Trump. Strangely enough he now jet-sets with the GOP in the USA giving the sort of lectures they love.

Alexandre Bisonnette 27 years old 

The events of last night at the Centre Islamique in Sainte-Foy was the work of a young man, a loner, demonstrating anti-social behaviour, who apparently according to neighbours had been bullied in school as a child, though his classmate describe him as a boor and an obnoxious twit, he has an identical twin who lives somewhere in Canada. His name is Alexandre Bisonnette, 27 years old, lived at his parents in the small village of Cap-Rouge near Quebec City. He liked hunting and had a gun collection, this element surprises me because fire arms are strictly controlled in Canada and I hope we will find out how he got his hands on an AK-47 to commit his crime, a weapon that is strictly controlled and impossible to get, unless you have links to criminal gangs. His family claim tonight that they do not understand what happened, such a nice boy. Did they not notice that he spouted alt-right opinions, that he was in love with Marie LePen of LeFront National in France, that he was trolling websites about refugees and women and that he was spewing pure hate for them.

Apparently he had wonderful parents, I strongly doubt that, if the two previous criminal cases in Canada are any proof of parents who are distant and not involved with their child until disaster strikes.

So our criminal terrorist was white, Roman Catholic, French Canadian, living in the suburbs of Quebec City. He came from a comfortable well to do family, never lacked for anything, went to good schools and was a University Student at Laval. Amongst his victims was a Professor from Laval University. Sorry White House, sorry Prez. Trump, sorry Fox News not an Arab, no Islamist here, just a plain white, christian suburbanite jerk.

Prime Minister Trudeau in the House of Commons today spoke on the events and he re-asserted that Canada remains steadfast as a diverse and multicultural country, welcoming to all and that such horrible events will not change our course as a Nation. It is just tremendously sad that this event comes just after the weekend of that Fascistic decree by the Donald, which is an assault on human dignity and decency.

Crowds on Parliament Hill in Ottawa tonight, a vigil for the victims, flags are flying at half-mast to honour them in Canada.