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.

After weeks of pressure, the school board ordered the school to reinstate the anthem Monday.

Education Minister Kelly Lamrock went further, saying he will change regulations to make daily playing or singing of O Canada mandatory in elementary and high school across the province.

"I have asked officials to put that together," he said. "I frankly was surprised to learn the previous governments had left it as an optional choice to play the anthem.

"I believe schools should be playing the anthem. I believe it's important to make sure our children know not only the symbols we share but the values behind them."

Boyd said she is in touch with parents in British Columbia and other provinces who are poised to argue the anthem should be a requirement for young Canadian children.

She argues the anthem is a key part of children's knowledge of the country's history, and honours soldiers killed in past wars and in the recent Afghanistan conflict.

"If our troops hadn't died for our country, we wouldn't be discussing this. We wouldn't be singing a national anthem because our country wouldn't be free," she said.

In British Columbia, Annette Nicholls, a 41-year-old mother of three, said she's written to schools in Richmond arguing her children should hear the anthem each day rather than only in assemblies.

She said she is frustrated that her that her six-year-old son seldom sings O Canada.

"I'm sure my kids don't even know the words," Nicholls said.

The B.C. Education Ministry doesn't require the anthem be played each day. However, it does require it be sung by students during at least three school assemblies each year.

In Ontario, regulations require the anthem be read, performed or played either in the morning or the evening in each school, and children who object are allowed to leave the room.

In Quebec, many English schools long ago abandoned the morning singing of O Canada, and there isn't a legal requirement that it be played, said David Birnbaum, executive director of the Quebec English School Board Association.

He said there's little appetite to change that.

"It's certainly not a way the school day starts," he said.

"My guess is that some people on a emotional level might think it's a good idea, but I can't imagine it would be something we would undertake as a major lobbying effort.

The issue made it to the House of Commons last week when Conservative MP Mike Allen, who represents the New Brunswick riding of Tobique-Mactaquac, said dropping the anthem at the start of the school day amounted to "political correctness run wild."

On Monday he said he's "ecstatic" the decision has been reversed, and hopes the trend will spread to other provinces.

"I'm very disappointed when we have the national anthem in the House of Commons that the Bloc (Quebecois) don't come in and sing," he said.

O Canada was proclaimed Canada's national anthem on July 1, 1980, 100 years after it was first sung on June 24, 1880.

The music was composed by Calixa Lavallee, a well-known composer. French lyrics to accompany the music were written by Sir Adolphe-Basile Routhier.