Following Ottawa’s unveiling of a new Canadian passport design on May 10, the Royal Canadian Legion said they are “disappointed” by the decision to remove an image of the Vimy Ridge Memorial that “signifies the sacrifices made for the very sort of freedom the passport provides.”
“The Vimy Memorial was a fundamental image, also representing a defining moment for Canada, a country emerging as an independent nation with limitless potential,” said Nujma Bond, spokesperson for the Royal Canadian Legion, in a May 10 email.
“Removing that image in the context of a design change and without knowing the rationale was, to put it bluntly, a poor decision.”
The newly designed passport has pages displaying generic images of nature and Canadian symbols—some of which have indigenous roots—while including fewer historical depictions.
Minister of Families, Children and Social Development Karina Gould said at the design unveiling that the new passport reflects Canada and still contains “fairly traditional Canadian images” such as polar bears, and people jumping into a lake, and birds in the winter.
During the Battle of Vimy Ridge, which took place in 1917 during the First World War, the four divisions of the Canadian Expeditionary Force fought together to capture the objective, losing 3,598 men in the process. In 1936, a monument honouring the memory of the men was erected at the site of the battlefield in France.
During Question Period on May 10, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre noted that the depiction of Vimy Ridge in the previous passport had been replaced by one of a squirrel eating a nut. Also gone from the passport is Parliament’s Centre Block, the Stanley Cup, the famous photo of the last spike going into the Canadian Pacific Railway, and a photo of Nellie McClung.
Terry Fox’s cross-country Marathon of Hope, which was done to raise money for cancer research, represented in the previous passport, is also absent from the new design.
Brad West, the mayor of Fox’s hometown of Port Coquitlam, reacted to the new design on Twitter, saying that “Whoever made the decision to remove Terry Fox from Canadian passports needs to give their head a shake,“ adding that Canada ”needs more Terry Fox, not less.”
When announcing the design, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Minister Sean Fraser said the changes to the passport’s theme were not political in nature, but were made to prevent counterfeiting. “
“It does make it easier when you maintain the same images for a significant period of time for counterfeiters to abuse the document and to produce fakes,” he said.
Fraser said the federal government decided on the new passport images following consultation with several government departments and stakeholders, including Heritage Canada and some indigenous communities.
“One of the things that we heard is that we want to celebrate our diversity and inclusion. We want to celebrate our natural environment,” he said, noting that during the consultation process, some indicated they found the previous historical images “offensive.”
He said, beginning in the fall, Canadians will be able to apply for passport renewals online by uploading the required documents and passport photos through a secure government website.
