Controversial new Canadian Army logo approved at highest levels, documents show

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A new Canadian Army logo that sparked an intense online backlash was approved at the highest level with no objections raised about the image that has since been likened to a bear having sex with a moose.

The senior level military approval process for the new Canadian Army logo started in March 2024 with a plan to roll out the image in May online, according to documents obtained by the Ottawa Citizen.

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But, once made public, the logo — a tilted maple leaf and a pixilated camouflage pattern — met with immediate ridicule.

Some social-media users expressed anger, claiming the army was changing its official emblem. Others compared the new logo to an image of a man or bear having sex with a moose. Memes were created making fun of the new Army icon, which others likened to a pile of feces or pixel art from Minecraft, an online game.

The social-media ridicule prompted National Defence to issue an apology for the confusion and a statement clarifying that the Army’s official emblem wasn’t being replaced. Instead, it noted, the icon was a supplementary design.

But Army documents obtained using the Access to Information law show the new logo was carefully planned and approved by military leadership.

The approval process started on March 21 with the deputy army commander, followed by discussion among army public affairs officers at a townhall and then a briefing April 12 for top army leaders, the records showed. No objections to the new imagery were registered at the time.

But the rollout documents pointed out that the image could only be used a certain way. “Icon should not be flipped horizontally or vertically,” the briefing documents noted, although there was no explanation for that instruction.

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The image is supposed to highlight the colours used in the Army’s new camouflage pattern. In particular, the icon resembles the pixels, in shades of brown, topped by a maple leaf and was extracted from this pattern, according to National Defence.

The social-media backlash was immediate after the Army posted its new icon May 3. Besides the sexual references, much of the commentary focused on trying to figure out what the imagery was supposed to represent.

“Looks like something I wipe off my windshield while pumping gas,” one commentator wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Questions were also raised about who came up with the logo and who approved it, with suggestions that those individuals be fired.

Conservative MPs claimed that the Liberal government had forced the new imagery on the Army.

The documents, however, make clear that the icon was an Army initiative developed by in-house personnel.

National Defence spokesman Alex Tétreault says the new logo is in use. “The icon design will be displayed in the bottom left corner of various internal and external products and presentations,” he stated in an email to the Ottawa Citizen. “It will also be used in video animation and content generated for social media.”

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The icon was part of a new Army branding and communications strategy. That strategy had a goal to “establish and maintain credibility,” noted then-Army commander Lt. Gen. Jocelyn Paul in the service’s new public affairs strategy released in May. Paul has since retired.

Tétreault said the army did not produce a follow-up report to examine what went right or wrong with the rollout of the logo or to examine what was behind the resulting social-media backlash.

But a retired senior military public affairs officer says that was the wrong approach to take.

“Not conducting lessons-learned on initiatives such as this to understand the positive and negative is an abdication of professional responsibility and a failure of senior leader oversight of the communications function,” retired army Col. Brett Boudreau said. “Going forward, it essentially guarantees a repeat of bad process, decisions, planning and outcomes in similar undertakings.”

He said the new icon initiative, “while surely well-meaning, was a failure.”

Tétreault noted the imagery was developed by the department’s internal graphic design team at no extra expense to taxpayers.

David Pugliese is an award-winning journalist covering Canadian Forces and military issues in Canada. To support his work, subscribe: ottawacitizen.com/subscribe

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