“O Canada” is the national anthem of Canada. The song was originally commissioned by the then Lieutenant Governor of Quebec, the Honorable Theodore Robitaille, for the 1880 St. Jean-Baptiste Day ceremony. Calixa Lavallee wrote the music, which was a setting of a patriotic poem composed by the poet and judge Sir Adolphe-Basile Routhier. The text was originally only in French as a French Canadian patriotic song.
The French “O Canada” was first performed on June 24, 1880 but did not become Canada’s official national anthem until July 1, 1980. The Canadian government bought the rights to the lyrics and music for only one dollar. In 1906, the music with the French text and a first translation into English was published.
The English version that gained the widest currency was written in 1908 by Robert Stanley Weir, a lawyer. A slightly modified version of his poem was published in official form fro the Diamond Jubilee of Confederation in 1927, and gradually became the most accepted and performed version. Official changes to the English version were recommended in 1968 and a religious reference was added in 1980.
