Good morning. Thank you for your insight.
I am an MP and the mother of two daughters. I think it's important to talk about our national anthem and our history. I agree that we need to seriously reflect on our history and the change we are discussing today.
We look at the original words. In 1908 it was “true patriot love thou dost in us command”, which, as you said, I hear me in those words; they include me. But the words were changed.
I'll get to my question, because it's important that we consider this.
If you look at the Canadian Encyclopedia, in 1913 there was a version that was published that had “thy sons command”, and then there was a copyright in 1914 for that wording, but we don't actually have anything from the writer to tell us why he made those changes. There's nothing about a change about poetry or the need to consider any other issues. We don't know, and that's important.
I think we need to take a look at the snapshot of what was going on in 1913 and 1914, because we're going to consider history, and I would like you to comment on that when we get there.
At that point, the suffrage movement was becoming very active. In 1912 the Political Equality League had formed. Nellie McClung was one of its members.
In 1914 they launched a play about women in Parliament called Mock Parliament, which was very funny because, in fact, women couldn't be in Parliament. If we were having this discussion at that time, I wouldn't be here. They were taking this play on the road to get people to think about it.
Then women did get the right to vote. About four years after the copyrighted change, the first time some women in this country were allowed to vote federally was in 1918. Then in 1921 some women in this country were not only able to vote, but for the first time were also able to be elected. This is important to my personal history, because the first female MP elected in 1921 was Agnes Macphail. She was from East York, which is part of my riding.
That's my history and women's history, but it's also a very important part of Canadian history. That means a lot to me when we're going to take some time to think about what we're doing here looking at the national anthem.
Today we have parity in cabinet. That's a great change. But women make up only 26% of the House of Commons, so there is still a long way to go. Taking the snapshot from 1913 to 1914, it was a very tumultuous time when we were looking at the suffrage movement.
You didn't quite raise it, but I've heard another argument about why we should have “thy sons command”, related to the First World War. That's an interesting piece, because in 1913 we weren't at war yet. But when we get to 1914, and we consider our involvement in the war, women were also involved in World War I. That's an important part of Canadian history. There were 3,141 Canadian nurses that served in the Canadian Army Medical Corps. In fact, 46 of them gave their lives in the line of duty, so women also died serving this country during World War I.
I have a strong respect for history and women's participation in the First World War. When we take a look at where we are now, women are actively involved in our military and in serving our country, and that's something for which I think we need to show quite a bit of respect.
I'm looking at this and I'm taking into account this history. Where were we? We were looking at the women's suffrage movement, an active time when we were talking about including women. We were talking about a change that happened, at least in first editions, before the First World War, and then changed after.
I look at what I'm going to tell my daughters when I go home today about what we're proposing and the discussions we're having here in Parliament today, in 2016, about our national anthem. These are two girls who every day in school sing the national anthem. They're proud Canadians.
What you're proposing is an objection to amending back to the original version, really, the wording of our national anthem to make it inclusive of all genders. I want to know, what do I tell them about the fact that a historian came to Parliament and testified today that in order to honour our history we need to exclude them? If I can add to that, because I would be interested in hearing your answer to this, how do I explain to my daughters that their true patriot love is not relevant to our country?
Thank you.