Dying MP’s Are Shitty at Make a Wish

Canadian Parliament Member Mauril Belanger is declining rapidly from ALS, providing the perfect sentimental moment in the House for his colleagues to pass his long stagnated bill to make the National Anthem of Canada gender neutral. His bill would change the second line of the anthem from “in all thy sons command” to “in all of us command”. Take note if you’re attending a hockey match. Not that you knew the words regardless. It’s a fucking leaf.

If the rule in Ottawa is that anybody with an incurable disease gets one last legislative wish, you’d think maybe this French-accented rep would’ve aimed a higher. Are the children all fed? The fundamentalist Muslims wrapped up tight? Everybody have snowshoes and emergency beer for the shut-in months? Kids with terminal cancer imagine so much bigger. Singular issue symbolism is the purview of politicians. It sucks that you’re dying of Lou Gehrig’s disease, so allow me to put this gently — goodbye.

_{Photo credit: (cover) CBC.ca (inside) Justin Tank/Canadian Press}