Canada has perhaps the world's lamest national motto, A Mari usque ad Mare (From Sea to Sea), from the Latin translation of a verse in Psalm 72 whose English translation contains the word dominion—and Canada was the first "dominion," i.e., an absentee monarchy in which the British monarch farms out her largely ceremonial role to a local viceroy.  The King James translation of the full verse is: "He shall have dominion also from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth."  The seas in question are the Dead Sea and the Mediterranean, and the river, the Jordan.  "He," of course, is God.

Forget, for a moment, the popular question of why only two seas when the country borders three oceans: the Arctic, Atlantic and Pacific.  Why does an allegedly multicultural and secular society have a scriptural quote as its national motto?  And isn't it more than a little pretentious to equate Canada with the Kingdom of God?  And why quote King David, the Psalmist, in Latin, the language of an empire that tried to annihilate Judaism?  What's wrong with the original Hebrew: Mi-Yam ad-Yam?  Too Jewish?  I guess so, since the word dominion doesn't appear in the Hebrew text.   It's a verb in Hebrew (and French and Latin), meaning "Let him rule" or "He will rule."  Oops, so much for Canada being God's dominion ... only in the English translation.

Personally, I don't see why we need a national motto anyway.  Australia and New Zealand got rid of theirs.