There are many people who have recently learned that their passports contain “significant” symbols for our culture and our history. The Terry Fox Statue, the National Vimy Memorial in France, the Gray Cup and the Stanley Cup will no longer be featured in our new passport design.
And there are many people who seemed to be attached to these illustrations. Rarely have we seen so much passion for the images that adorn a travel document. We are scandalized by what we consider to be the victory of wokism which would plague our state apparatus. We would like, according to some, to erase, sanitize and cancel our culture for the benefit of beavers and squirrels, set up as symbols of the Canadian consensus. It’s ridiculous, I know.
Can we calm down?
No, not everything is scandal, not everything is conspiracy, not everything is an insult and certainly not everything is political.
Honestly, it’s much more disturbing to see Pierre Poilièvre waving our passports and tearing his shirt than to see our government adopting innocuous and borderline ridiculous illustrations. That he can consider that Canadians can be mobilized against Trudeau because he would have knowingly removed “symbols” of our nation, it is frankly an insult to our intelligence.
Remember that it was the Conservatives of Stephen Harper, his spiritual father, who removed a painting by Alfred Pellan to replace it with a portrait of the Queen in the foyer of the Department of Foreign Affairs in Ottawa (before the Trudeau government handed over the board once in power).
Let’s be clear, the proposed new design is not particularly beautiful or deep or symbolic. But it does the trick. When we dropped the famous sun on our health card, no one cried conspiracy. With reason!
Because we have to go back to basics: a passport is not a history book. It is not intended to educate us on our symbols or to educate customs officials in other countries before stamping it. It is a travel document that must be judged on its security and durability. We may find it beautiful, we may find it ugly, but as long as it allows us to travel and makes it difficult to counterfeit, that’s ultimately all that matters.
It’s a bit discouraging to see how hypersensitive and milky we are and that nothing comes to turn us on. It seems to me that we have other priorities that could not be more urgent.