Photo: AP Images.

Canada is changing the lyrics to its national anthem, ā€œO Canada,ā€ so they’re more gender neutral.

CBC News reported that the country’s Senate has approved a bill (already passed by the House of Commons) that would swap the line ā€œin all thy sons commandā€ with ā€œin all of us command.ā€ Margaret Atwood applauded the change:

CBC spoke to one of the women who supported the move in the Senate:

Independent Quebec Sen. Chantal Petitclerc, a former Paralympian who has been awarded 14 gold medals for wheelchair racing, said she was ā€œjealousā€ of those athletes headed to Pyeongchang for the winter games, as they will finally be able to sing a gender neutral anthem — an option that wasn’t open to her when she competed internationally in the 1990s and early 2000s.

ā€œI had the privilege to be on the podium many times and I never had the chance to sing ā€˜In all of us command,ā€™ā€ she said. ā€œI can only imagine what they’ll feel when they’re on the step of that podium ... it’s an amazing moment.ā€

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Conservatives including Manitoba Sen. Don Plett opposed the move. Said Plett: ā€œI believe the Canadian public wanted a say in our national anthem, just like they had in the great Canadian flag debate. This is an issue for the Canadian public to decide not just a couple of Independent senators.ā€ But it’s a little weird that the anthem even had the line to begin with. The BBC said:

The song was first performed in 1880, with several different versions of the lyrics emerging in the coming years, according to Canadian Heritage.

Originally composed with French lyrics, O Canada became the country’s national anthem in 1980.

The English version of the song at one point contained the line ā€œthou dost in us commandā€, which was revised in 1913 to ā€œin all thy sons commandā€.

The French version does not have a reference to sons.

Since 1980, there have been twelve attempts to get the law changed, before this one finally stuck.