Trudeau's anti-human symbolism
National Post, 14 May 2023
The new passport design fails because the images would be equally relevant if Canada had never existed
I had not intended to return to the matter of the Canadian Royal Crown — the “Trudeau crown” — in the Canadian coat of arms, having had my say last week. But then came the unveiling of the newly confected crown this week and, a few days later, the release of Canada’s new passport design. Both invite us to think about what symbols actually signify.
About the new passport, the Post has helpfully contrasted the new images with the old — a man raking leaves replaces Terry Fox, the Bluenose is replaced by pumpkins — and Carson Jerema has ably commented in these pages upon the foolishness of trying to erase history.
The symbols themselves speak and bear consideration, though: first, the actual meaning of the snowflake; and, second, the hostility in these new symbols to human achievement.
It may be that the snowflake has become to Canada what the shamrock is to Ireland. But there’s something odd about updating our symbols to emphasize something whose meaning has recently changed.
Most references today to “snowflakes” are not about the weather. Rather, the word is often used as a derogatory term for those who are fragile and too admiring of their own unique beauty. For a government that lives intensely in the present tense, to crown Canada as a snowflake nation seems to ignore how the word is actually now used.
Meanings do change. Back around the time of Confederation, “snowflake” was Missouri slang for those who wished to preserve slavery, favouring “whiteness” as represented by snow.
The official explanation of the snowflake’s prominence is that Canada is a “northern realm.” True enough, but snow, one might observe, is not a uniquely Canadian thing. The other significance one hears is that the snowflake is an excellent symbol of diversity, no two being the same.
The snowflake is a symbol of fleeting identity. It falls unique, but is quickly absorbed into a great, undifferentiated mass — the individual tramped underfoot into an anonymous collective. Canada has long prided itself on being a mosaic instead of a melting pot, yet the snowflake symbolism is much more assimilationist than the melting pot. Do Liberal experts think about such things as their graphic design software generates new logos?
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