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Mark Donnelly, Vancouver Canucks’ longtime national anthem singer, is in the news for his plans to sing O Canada at an anti-mask gathering this weekend. That the Canadian anthem would serenade the fringe far-right event is actually quite appropriate. (1/10) https://vancouversun.com/news/local-news/covid-19-canucks-anthem-singer-mark-donnelly-to-perform-at-anti-masker-rally
Quick thread on the song, written in the 1880s by Calixa Lavallée, a Quebec-born composer. Lavallée spent much of his early career performing in blackface in minstrel shows in the United States (credited with founding the New Orleans Minstrel Company) (2) https://www.macleans.ca/opinion/the-hidden-racist-history-of-o-canada/
Lavallée’s most notable work besides “O Canada” was called “The Indian Question,” and was a wild and farcical operetta loosely based on General Custer and the war against Sitting Bull. It rehashed a range of colonial stereotypes and framed Sitting Bull as a “noble savage.” (3)
So the national anthem was written by a man who performed minstrel shows and mocked Indigenous people. These days, in addition to its official appearances, the anthem tends to show up in counter-protests against Indigenous mobilizations and movements like Black Lives Matter. (4)
For instance, when Six Nations land defenders first blocked the construction of a housing development on their territory, neo-Nazi Gary McHale organized groups of white people to gather and provoke the Six Nations blockade: they waved Canadian flags and sang O Canada. (5)
Similarly, right wing hate groups like PEGIDA, anti-immigration mobilizations like the Canadian yellow-vest marches, and the anti-mask protests often make the nat’l anthem a prominent part of their events, plenty of spontaneous singing and flag-waving. (6) https://vimeo.com/231243424
It’s 1978. Canadian mining giant INCO is opening up its Lake Izabal nickel mine. To do so, INCO has worked closely with a man nicknamed “the Butcher,” who massacred thousands of indigenous Guatemalans. On the very ground where they were killed, the band strikes up O Canada. (7)
Canada in the World documents this case and many others in much more detail, but the point is that the national anthem has always been wrapped up in some of the worst aspects of what Canada is and has been in the world. (8) https://fernwoodpublishing.ca/book/canada-in-the-world
No great surprise that a man so associated with the national anthem should also be a longtime purveyor of right/far-right politics (anti-abortion crusader, Conservative party hopeful, and now evidently a denier of the highly contagious virus that has killed over 1.5M people.) (9)
In sum, the anthem is what it claims to be: a representation of Canada. It’s past and present are, like the nation it exalts, inextricably woven together with racism, colonialism and genocide. And it’s biggest fans are those who would seek to deny those (and other) realities.(10)
