Our job is to beat the Hun. Vote Union Government (Canada, 1917 election)

A type-only poster in heavy black capitals: 'Our job is to beat the Hun. Vote Union Government.' The enemy is named by a collective label (name-calling), and casting a ballot for the coalition is written in as the same act as defeating him, so that the choice of party stands in for the choice of the war effort (identity-fusion). The sheet is signed by its publisher and printer in small print.

Date: 1917
Period: First World War
Made by: Union Government Publicity Bureau, Ottawa (printed by the Ottawa Printing Company, Limited)
Region: North America
Country: Canada
Medium: Poster
Issuer type: Party
Regime: Borden Government
Leader: Robert Laird Borden
Audience: Domestic public
Purpose: Persuade or win support
Themes: Elections and party politics, War and the military
Event: 1917 Canadian Federal Election
Techniques: Name-calling Identity fusion
Source: Identified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they are
Source: Wikimedia Commons (from Library and Archives Canada, Acc. No. 1983-28-740, MIKAN 3635569), retrieved September 29, 2026
Rights: Public domain (published 1917, before 1931; Canadian Crown copyright also expired; PD-US and PD-Canada per Commons)
Union Government Publicity Bureau, Ottawa, 1917. Library and Archives Canada, Acc. No. 1983-28-740, MIKAN 3635569, via Wikimedia Commons.

Text on the object

Original (English) · read from the image, not independently checked

OUR JOB
IS TO
BEAT
THE
HUN

VOTE UNION GOVERNMENT

Published by the Union Government Publicity Bureau [lower left]
Printed by the Ottawa Printing Company, Limited [lower right]

[small printer's union mark at bottom centre, illegible]

The photographic copy shows the poster's borders and paper edges; nothing has been cropped.