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If we really want to update the national anthem to reflect modern sensitivities, as in changing “in all thy sons command” to “in all of us command,” we’ve got a lot of work to do.

“O Canada.” Start with “O.” It is such an 18th-century form of address. Nobody uses it anymore. When students text me, they write “Hey, Prof.” It’s 2016. We should go for “Hey Canada” rather than “O Canada.” Personally, I’d put a comma after Hey – a vocative comma, if I remember my grammar. But grammar is so last-century. We can probably leave it out.

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As for “Our home and native land”: A couple of problems here. Who exactly are the “we” represented by “our.” It’s only the native land of people who were born here, so right away we’re excluding immigrants. Not very inclusive of us!

Then there’s the problem of whose land it is, exactly. Natives are pretty clear it’s their land. So we should probably change to “Our home, but Native land.” And they prefer “First Nations” to “Native” so it should be “Our home, but First Nations’ land – and water, mineral, air and space rights,” just to represent their constitutional position accurately.