Images in new passports fail groups’ diversity tests

OTTAWA — The federal government awarded itself some wins and a loss Wednesday as it fended off criticism for erasing women and minorities from Canada’s past.

Passport Canada came under fire this week after the Canadian Press disclosed that focus groups had complained that images chosen for new passports shortchange Canada’s multiculturalism and the contributions of women.

The series of more than a dozen iconic images, printed as watermarks in the pages of the new passports, include landmarks and famous white men but show little human diversity, said the groups.

Passport Canada fought back, noting it had included a famous photograph of the Last Spike about the 1885 completion of the transcontinental railway, showing some Chinese labourers.

Chinese-Canadian historians immediately challenged that assertion, and the government has backed down, now acknowledging no Chinese workers or any visible minorities appear in the photo.

The agency also said that after the focus-group report it tweaked two other pictures — one of a hockey game and the other of four Moun- ties on horseback — to digitally add females and visible minority people in each.

Minority activists and critics said the government’s update of its diversity scorecard is meaningless.

“Two token images — one of a woman, one of a visible minority — so weak they are practically invisible to the naked eye do not diversity make,” said Rachel Decoste, a visible-minority activist and motivational speaker in Ottawa. “Canadian women’s role in our country’s history should never be reduced to a singular female face on a hockey player’s body.”

Victor Wong, head of the Chinese Canadian National Council, noted the government had the choice of many other archival photos clearly depicting labourers from China building the railway.

He also objected to an image of Canada’s north, which includes a photo of explorer Capt. Joseph-Elzear Bernier rather than the Arctic’s aboriginal peoples. No aboriginal people are included in any of the images.

The focus-group project, awarded to Phoenix Strategic Perspectives Inc. for $53,000, included two small groups in each of four cities. The project was intended primarily as a “disaster check” to ensure there were no offensive images included.