Our navy is short thousands of sailors and struggling to build new ships, but they are looking after the important stuff – changing the official march song because it’s not woke.
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Senior officers at the Royal Canadian Navy have spent four years discussing replacing Heart of Oak as their official march song.
The song has been part of the Royal Canadian Navy since its inception, coming from the traditional march song of the Royal Navy in Britain.
A briefing note drafted in December 2020 states there are three issues with the lyrics that are contrary to defence policy. Those issues include not being gender inclusive, celebrating a colonial past and a reference to slavery.
“Disgusting,” one naval veteran said upon hearing about the attempt to change the song.
“It’s all I’ve ever known,” said a still-serving officer who doesn’t support the move.
No one should support the move; it’s ridiculous social justice crap not based in reality.
Having read the lyrics and listened to the song, the reasons presented in the briefing note show a political agenda at work.
“First, the line ‘to add something new to this wonderful year’ references Annus Mirabulis of 1759, various British victories as part of colonial conquests including over the French colony of Canada,” the briefing memo states.
The Royal Canadian Navy is worried their march song celebrates a victory of Britain over France? That’s our history, deal with it, and yes, both Britain and France were colonial powers, France lost, move on.
Secondly, the briefing note mentions the lyric “not press you like slaves,” which is today sung “as freemen not slaves,” and mentions that the Royal Navy had been involved in the slave trade. The more important thing to note is that no organization on the planet did more to eradicate slavery than the Royal Navy after Britain abolished slavery.
The comment is historically ignorant to say the least.
“Finally, the lyrics are not inclusive to all genders,” it states.
The memo was drafted by Lt. Catherine Norris who is currently the Commanding Officer of the Central Band of the Canadian Armed Forces. Rather than simply delete the memo and the email it came with, officials decided to begin a process that has been going on for four years to find a new march song and throw out something that is part of Canadian naval tradition.
“Heart of Oak is very ingrained in the RCN, unlike a lot of commands/branches/units who couldn’t name or hum their march. However, I think it is worth pointing out the hypocrisy of changing the ranks be more inclusive while continuing to sing a March which isn’t,” wrote Lt. Norris.
Seems having lyrics that refer to men and lads, but not to women or the other invented genders, just isn’t acceptable in the navy today.
“One of the decisions at Admiral’s Council back in February was to replace Heart of Oak as the RCN march as it fails to meet muster on both GBA+ and Canadian grounds,” Vice Admiral Angus Topshee, the Commander of the Royal Canadian Navy, wrote in July 2022.
For those not familiar with the term GBA+, it refers to Gender-based Analysis Plus, which is an official policy and commitment of the Canadian government under Justin Trudeau.
“GBA Plus is an intersectional analysis that goes beyond biological (sex) and socio-cultural (gender) differences to consider other factors, such as age, disability, education, ethnicity, economic status, geography (including rurality), language, race, religion, and sexual orientation,” the government’s website states.
Is there any military song that would be generic and inoffensive enough for this policy?
The other day, Defence Minister Bill Blair said the Canadian Armed Forces as a whole are short 14,000 people. All three branches of the military are having trouble recruiting people join.
Going woke and throwing military tradition away isn’t going to help that problem.