Should Canada make a one-word tweak to its national anthem?
In February, Jully Black sang the national anthem prior to the 2023 NBA All-Star in Salt Lake City, Utah. She made a minor change that had a major impact and sparked a nation-wide conversation.
Instead of singing "O Canada! Our home and native land," Black sang “O Canada! Our home on native land" to acknowledge the Indigenous peoples who lived on the land before European settlers.
A recent poll showed that only a third of Canadians support the altered lyrics, with 33 per cent of those polled across the country agreeing with Black. Another 48 per cent opposed the one-word edit and 19 per cent said that they don't know.
Support for the change was higher among younger Canadians, with 42 per cent of respondents aged 18 to 34 supporting the proposed move.
Percentages are similar among Vancouverites.
In a simple "yes" or "no" poll, just over 34 per cent of locals showed support for the revised anthem while 65 per cent opposed it.
Vancouver Is Awesome polled 1392 Vancouver Is Awesome readers and asked the question: Should Canada's national anthem be changed to 'our home on native land'?
The poll ran from 6/12/2023 to 6/30/2023. Of the 1392 votes, we can determine that 681 are from within the community. The full results are as follows:
Results are based on an online study of adult Vancouver Is Awesome readers that are located in Vancouver. The margin of error - which measures sample variability - is +/- 2.62%, 19 times out of 20.
Vancouver Is Awesome uses a variety of techniques to capture data, detect and prevent fraudulent votes, detect and prevent robots, and filter out non-local and duplicate votes.
With files from The Canadian Press.
