Client: Egale Canada
Office: Toronto, Canada
In a world where progress is often assumed, the fight for equality becomes even more urgent. So, we confronted Canadians with an uncomfortable truth: hate isn't history; it's happening. In a series of print ads, we brought strikingly similar acts of hate from the past and present together, to show that the fight against anti-2SLGBTQI hate is far from over.
To aid a new generation of Canadians in the fight against anti-2SLGBTQI violence and discrimination, advocacy organizaton Egale Canada created a suite of online tools and resources designed to combat hate and misinformation. But driving young people to these tools was a challenge, especially during Pride month, when they're surrounded by feel-good diversity messaging.
In 1970, Pride began as a defiant protest. Today, young Canadians only know Pride as a celebration. This contributes to complacency, and feeds a dangerous perception: that the kinds of discrimination 2SLGBTQI people faced decades ago no longer occur. But the stark reality is, the same acts of hate that used to make headlines are still happening today, and in many of the same places.
We brought the past and present together to make the fight against hate as urgent today as it was decades ago. We meticulously recreated real news stories from the 50s, 70s and 80s in a photojournalistic style. Then we overlaid each image with a social media-inspired clip recreating a real act of hate from the present. The juxtaposition is chilling: two acts of hate, decades apart, but virtually identical.
“Hate Isn’t History. It’s Happening.” emerged as one of Egale Canada’s top-performing campaigns of 2025. It drove a 60% increase in traffic to the Rainbow Action Hub, Egale’s suite of online tools and resources designed to fight anti-2SLGBTQI hate. The campaign page on Egale’s website saw consistent month-over-month growth, with more than 14,000 views in three months. Visitors showed high levels of engagement with educational resources and narrative-shifting content around hate, history and inclusion.
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