Hi folks,

This is a great cultural question: Should this country’s national anthem, O Canada, be sung each morning at school, or just once in a while at school ceremonies? Here is an article:

N.B. parents force school to reinstate O Canada, call for others to follow

By Michael Tutton, The Canadian Press

Susan Boyd wants O Canada to be mandatory at the start of the day in elementary schools across the country after she successfully fought for the anthem’s return at her daughter’s tiny school in New Brunswick.

Belleisle Elementary in Springfield, about 40 kilometres northeast of Saint John, played the national anthem Monday morning.

“It’s one step forward, but our job isn’t done yet,” Boyd said in a telephone interview.

“We have to continue and have it legislated that it’s mandatory. Otherwise it could be overturned in another few weeks or even a year or two from now if it’s not written in stone.”

School principal Erik Millett incurred Boyd’s wrath and a torrent of angry calls and emails in recent weeks after a group of parents complained that O Canada wasn’t being played before classes.

Millett, who couldn’t be reached for comment Monday, moved the anthem to monthly assemblies in September 2007, saying it was a more “inclusive” option.

The principal has told the New Brunswick Telegraph-Journal that using the anthem at the monthly assemblies would give it “more prominence, more importance.”

Before his decision, one child had been sitting outside class when the anthem was played at the request of the child’s parents, and for reasons that haven’t been publicly released.

A school board spokesman said the child’s situation played a role in Millett’s decision to drop the anthem.

When Boyd’s daughter told her recently that she was forgetting the words to O Canada, the 43-year-old mother of two started a campaign to bring it back.
(to read the rest of this article, please visit this link:
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/090202/national/no_o_canada )