In the wake of the Canadian government’s reveal of a new passport design – and the resulting backlash from some sections of the Canadian public – Wunderman Thomspon Canada is looking to inject a fresh, and more positive, perspective into the conversation around the redesigned travel document.

Central to the rejections of the new passport were complaints about the erasure of specific historic figures, such as Terry Fox, as well as the removal of symbols of Canada’s military past – most notably, the Canadian National Vimy Memorial. The decision drew sharp criticism from a number of columnists, as well as Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre and a wide swath of Canadians on social media. And not all of that feedback cleaved to the Canadian stereotype of politeness.

“The internet is a wonderful place, but it can also be a pretty negative one. With the response to the new passport design, the worst of the internet released itself. On Twitter, especially, it was really bad,” Ari Elkouby, chief creative officer at the agency, tells strategy. “We tried to use this as an opportunity to be something more than just overtly critical, by putting something more positive out there and putting a solution forward.”

Wunderman Thompson is attempting to shift that discourse by showcasing a mock passport page that could maintain the spirit of remembrance and continue to honour the sacrifice of Canada’s veterans, not only evoking the Vimy Memorial, but also the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Ottawa. Additional imagery is included in the passport’s security features and revealed under ultraviolet light: a poppy, as well as a diverse group of Canadian soldiers ranging from a First World War rifleman to both a woman and Sikh serviceperson.

“When Vimy was excluded, like a lot of Canadians, we were acutely aware of the significance of that monument,” explains Elkouby, pointing to “Remembrance Island,” a campaign the agency worked on for the Royal Canadian Legion in 2019, that saw the memorial recreated in popular video game Fortnite. “When it was omitted, that gave us an opportunity to rethink what a page might look like in the new passport more holistically, and we decided to go a level deeper and also include the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, the diverse group of soldiers and the poppy, as well.”

“A lot has been made in terms of the importance of representation and making sure more cliché representations of the army and service aren’t reinforced over and again,” he adds. “This is why you see diverse representation in our reimagination of what a passport page could or should have looked like.”

Ultimately, though the team at Wunderman Thompson “don’t have any illusions that Justin [Trudeau] is keeping tabs on our social channels,” Elkouby says. Some have been using criticisms of the redesign as an opportunity to score political points or further complaints about a “culture war,” so the goal was to “shift the discourse a little bit and give people something a little more constructive to focus on.”