Your action is urgently needed

Feeding bottle images on Canadian pasport application materials

Canada’s Department of Foreign Affairs, responsible for Passport Canada, has placed feeding bottles on the graphics accompanying the passport application for children under the age of 16.

Please write to the following Members of Parliament to state your objections to these bottle graphics and the need for quick action to have them removed.

A sample letter that you can use or modify is below.

Thanks for your immediate action on this.

Elisabeth Sterken
Director INFACT Canada
esterken@infactcanada.ca

Members of Parliament

Dear Member of Parliament,

It is shocking to see a baby bottle displayed on the graphics for Canada’s passport application for children under the age of 16.

Canada’s infant and young child feeding policy recommends exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months of life and sustained breastfeeding for two years and beyond.

Displaying graphics for artificial feeding convey a message that formula/bottle feeding is normal for Canadian children. The reality of formula feeding is serious health consequences; such as increased infections, increased chronic conditions such as diabetes, heart disease, cancers and obesity. Additionally formula fed children have lower IQs and more neurological anomalies.

I am sure that the Department of Foreign Affairs would not put a cigarette on the passport application graphics, similarly a graphic of an artificial feeding device is grossly unacceptable.

I look forward to the removal of this offensive graphic as quickly as possible so that parents applying for passports for their children do not receive messages from the Government of Canada that promote artificial feeding.

I look forward to your response and quick action to remove the feeding bottles.

Sincerely,