Woke’s war of attrition on the remaining symbols of Canada’s military honour is the national, self-inflicted wound that keeps on festering.
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Just as I was managing to slowly collect myself after a truly hurtful (at least for those who still love Canada) Remembrance Day 2024, the current defence-averse government of the country I served and was willing to die for continued to unleash its post-Marxist, decolonizing, ideological commissars on the cultural traditions of this country’s senior service.
That is the Royal Canadian Navy.
It was just not enough that public school principals might desecrate Remembrance Day with pro-Hamas protest songs or directives that serving military not wear military uniforms on Nov. 11. Certainly, it is not far enough down the path of decolonization that today’s “professional,” long-haired military reportedly can no longer march in step on Remembrance Day.
Recently, it was announced by Minister of National Defence Bill Blair that Heart of Oak, the popular 18th-century marching (and drinking) song of the Royal Navy, the Royal Canadian Navy and other commonwealth forces, was up for cancellation. Allegedly, based on the contrived feedback of certain paid, serving, pension-eligible members of the Royal Canadian Navy, this naval anthem is too steeped in Canada’s colonial past.
Toronto’s former police chief seems tacitly warm to the idea.
For the record, here is the short version of the likely-to-be-cancelled sinister colonial song that has adorned countless naval parades, mess dinners, retirements and commissioning ceremonies in Canada and throughout the Commonwealth:
Come cheer up my lads, tis to glory we steer,
To add something new to this wonderful year;
Tis to honour we call you, as free men not slaves,
For who are so free as the sons of the waves?
(Chorus)
Heart of oak our ships, jolly tars our men,
We always are ready, steady boys, steady.
We’ll fight and we’ll conquer again, and again.
Seems like, in Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s post-national, decolonized Canada, invoking cheerful, voluntary naval service among males (who still make up most of the Forces) to steadily fight in the name of glory and honour is ideologically offside.
I’ll be the first to admit that Heart of Oak is a prima facie representation of Canada’s male-dominated, military-colonial past. But why be ashamed?
Its proud past is as colonial as, for example, Royal Navy heroes like Lt. Miller Worsley and Capt. Alexander Dobbs who fought for Canada during the War of 1812-15. The audacious, daring and heroic actions of these two Royal Navy officers on the Great Lakes and Niagara River was one conspicuous step in preventing Canada from being conquered by the republic that twice elected Donald Trump.
The song unapologetically heralds the domination of colonialism in much the same way the army of the Dominion of Canada upheld the colonial legacy of France, Belgium and Britain at Ypres, Vimy Ridge and Amiens in 1917-18.
Indeed the song is as (pardon the pun) submersed in Canada’s colonial legacy as the tragically doomed crew of His Majesty’s Canadian Ship Raccoon, who all lost their lives in September 1942 when they were attacked and sunk by a German U-boat in the St Lawrence.
But with Blair, as the high priest anointed by Trudeau to sacrifice the Navy’s colonial anthem on the altar of post-national self-flagellating repentance for Canada’s original sin, let’s steer this woke dogma more succinctly and literally on the defence minister’s shoulders.
Certainly, we can say the conspicuous crown Blair proudly wore on his police chief uniform’s epaulettes, as his rank of authority, is a direct and deliberate invocation of “colonialism.”
Equally as steeped in our colonial history, customs and conventions could have been his police service supporting Crown prosecutors. Not to mention the Criminal Code of Canada – passed in the name of His Majesty – that Blair freely and willingly enforced at the highest possible level.
Equally as abhorrent to the forces of decolonization could be our colonial British-born Common Law Court System and our British-born and bred Westminster-style parliamentary system of government that validated and supported his power as police chief with supporting legislation and regulations.
Indeed, much repentance and breast-beating for a markedly colonial professional past as a police chief needs to take place in the defence minister’s office before he might consider sacrificing the cultural creed of the Royal Canadian Navy.
But others, like me, will never find cause to apologize for being who we are, where we came from, or being willing to serve this country for all it has become.
To quote part of the more extended version of Heart of Oak:
We ne’er see our foes, but we wish them to stay;
They always see us and they wish us away.
– Robert Smol is a retired teacher who served in the Canadian Armed Forces reserves for more than 20 years. He is currently completing a PhD in military history. Reach him at [email protected].