Replacing Canada’s Historical Symbols in New Passport With Bears and Birds Is a Poor Exchange

Commentary
A nation’s symbols define and conserve a shared way of life and bring about social cohesion. A country needs its symbols.
However, over the past generation, such needs have been dismissed as atavistic prejudices, which must be swept away wherever they stand in the way of schemes for national transformational projects. The default position of our age is for dissolving federal bonds and denying any notion of a shared, collective history, which leads us to the current debate over the changing symbols in our Canadian passport.
I am proud of my Canadian passport and the history it celebrates. The images in my passport portray famous Canadians, including Terry Fox, Billy Bishop, the Fathers of Confederation, and Nellie McClung….