Surely no holiday musters the kind of unanimous enthusiasm and uncomplicated pomp from politicians on all sides of the aisle as Canada Day.

But it wasn’t always like this.

The holiday as we know it was born on a hot afternoon in a sleepy House of Commons in 1982, when a small group of members of Parliament pushed through legislation to change the name of our national holiday from Dominion Day to Canada Day.

This revision has proved so contentious over the years that many — from history buffs to even a young Stephen Harper — have rallied to bring the term Dominion Day back into the national lexicon.

The making of Canada Day

It was a muggy afternoon on July 9, 1982, and the floor of the House of Commons was eerily empty.

As one might expect late on a Friday in the middle of an Ottawa summer, few members of Parliament had bothered to stick around — only 13 MPs, to be precise.

An hour before quitting time, Hal Herbert, Liberal MP for Vaudreuil introduced a private member’s bill to amend the Holidays Act to change the name of Canada’s national holiday from Dominion Day to Canada Day.

Five minutes later, the bill was quickly pushed through all three phases of reading and passed the House of Commons.

Amid cries of “Hear, hear!” the assembled politicians agreed to adjourn early in order to celebrate the occasion.

Changing the name to Canada Day was the culmination of decades of partisan fighting that reflected the shifting ideas about what it meant to be Canadian. Between 1946 and 1982, there were 20 attempts by politicians to replace the holiday name Dominion Day with Canada Day, writes historian Raymond Blake in the Asian Journal for Canadian Studies.

The Liberals had been informally referring to the holiday as Canada Day since the ’50s, in an attempt to “remove lingering symbols of the British heritage to meet the growing separatist movement in Quebec,” Blake writes. Meanwhile, the Conservatives contended the word “dominion” was not colonial at all, and opposed changing Canada’s past in order to suit its present.

Today, the most significant aspect of Canada Day celebrations is that they have turned the Ottawa celebrations into what University of Guelph historian Matthew Hayday calls a “release valve” for patriotism and nationalism.

“Our normally reserved, quietly smug sense of superiority that a lot of Canadians have suddenly becomes full-blown,” he said.

But the truth about our national holiday is more contentious than that.

While few can remember a time when Canada Day didn’t require all red-and-white attire and a glorious fireworks display on Parliament Hill, Hayday says that the Canadian government’s involvement in national celebrations really only began in the 1950s.

As Canada moved farther away from Mother Britain, the years leading up to the country’s 1967 centennial became a testing ground for a national holiday as a celebration of a distinctly Canadian identity.

The ceremonies took on new meaning in 1977, Hayday said, when the country was faced with the very real possibility of losing Quebec.

“Panic sets in,” Hayday said.

Thus, the national holiday became more than just a symbol of Canadian identity — it was a tool for federal unity.

It was during this time that the budget for official celebrations exploded, growing from tens of thousands of dollars in the 1960s to about $3 million, Hayday said. The ceremonies on Parliament Hill become longer and more lavish, and were broadcast nationwide.

By incorporating different factions of Canadian society into the national holiday performances, Hayday says the government was trying to symbolically incorporate parts of society that were often left out of the dominant white-Anglo identity, from francophones to Ukrainian immigrants to members of aboriginal communities.

Meanwhile, the word “dominion” became a kind of trigger word for the struggles to reconcile the country’s colonial past with its burgeoning multicultural identity.

Thus, by the time Canada Day became the official holiday, many felt the name more accurately represented the country’s present.

“By celebrating Canada Day, we will be honouring all our roots, including not only a fine British connection, but also the founding French culture, and the rich contribution of a hundred other ethnic origins,” a Star editorial enthused in 1982, after the holiday was established.

Gone but not forgotten

While supporters of Canada Day may have won the battle, some contend the war is not yet over.

In its first of many editorials on the matter, the Globe called the bill’s rushed passing “underhanded” and an “act of conspiracy,” and criticized Canada Day for sounding “bland.”

About a decade after the whole Dominion Day debacle, the Globe revived its editorial fervour for bringing the name back.

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“That is what is really at stake here: can we conceive of our nation in terms of the poetic and the historic? Or are we the people of the eternal now, not daring to imagine a greater future, nor caring to remember a glorious past? To object to the obliteration of historic symbols like Dominion Day is not to retreat into the past. It is merely to suggest that we have one,” the Globe wrote on July 1, 1993.

A few years later, a young Harper sponsored a private member’s bill in favour of changing it back.

“It has been a mistake for this country to try and preserve its future by destroying its past and the name Dominion Day should be restored,” he said in Parliament on Dec. 13, 1996.

Harper’s bill is never mentioned in parliamentary records again, and the name’s brief revival seems to have finally succumbed to parliamentary defeat. But the name still lives on in the hearts and minds of Canadians today.

Years later, Harper’s sentiments would be echoed by fellow Tory MP Brad Trost (Saskatoon—Humboldt), who took a moment during the parliamentary schedule to voice his support for the holiday moniker in 2012.

“I do not support the elimination of Canada Day but July 1 also needs to be known as Dominion Day once again. It is a mistake to try and preserve the future by destroying the past and the name Dominion Day should be restored,” Trost said in the House in 2012.

Last July 1, Trost stood before a crowd of celebrating citizens in Diefenbaker Park and let his opinion on the matter be known.

“Happy Dominion Day, happy Canada Day,” he beamed.

Speaking to the Star, Trost said that he’s “not too shy” about his preference for Dominion Day. Not a royalist by any means, Trost said he simply enjoys the name’s connection to history.

“I like acknowledging Canada’s past,” Trost said, adding that he finds the name Canada Day rather “bland.”

What is in a name?

While some rejoiced at the name change, it left a bad taste in the mouths of others.

“There has been a lingering sense of resentment over the fact that it was changed at all,” says Hayday.

“It’s a source of grievance for those who feel that British Canadian identity is the core of Canadian identity.”

If the critics of Canada Day got one thing right, it is that the name itself is rather on-the-nose. The history behind the name Dominion Day, on the other hand, demands significant interpretation.

James Bowden, the author of the blog Parliamentum, says that while some may feel that the title Dominion Day is a “colonial anachronism,” it offers Canadians a unique window into the country’s past.

On July 1, 1867, the British North America Act transformed Canada from a hodgepodge of colonial outposts into a unified country under the British crown.

The word “dominion” is used throughout the commonwealth to refer to a member state, but Bowden insists the word was not created in Britain, but in Canada itself by Sir Samuel Leonard Tilley of New Brunswick.

As Bowden tells it, Tilley was reading his King James Bible when he happened upon Psalm 72:8: “And he shall have dominion also from sea to sea, from the rivers unto the ends of the earth.” The psalm is echoed in Canada’s motto, a mari usque ad mare (from sea to sea), and Tilley would work it into Canada’s official title by referring to the country as the “Dominion of Canada” in the British North American Act.

Although he contends it’s a done deal, Andrew Thomson, a Dominion Day-enthusiast and historian from Guelph, Ont., said that for him, “dominion” still has a nicer ring.

“I’m just a little nostalgic for the old version . . . I’m wistful about it, it was such a lovely turn of phrase that we’ve abandoned” he said. “It was something uniquely Canadian that we’ve sort of bartered away.”

Correction – July 2, 2015: This article was edited from a previous version that misspelled the surname of Matthew Hayday.

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