New $5 Note: Possible Release Date Prediction?

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I was doing a Google search, and I discovered an image on Google's homepage that honored the 31st anniversary of Canadarm's first use in space today, and Canadarm is to be featured on the new $5 bill to be released next year.

It seems as if the theme of the Frontier series ties in to an anniversary of a historical event in Canadian history, like the new $100 bill, released on the anniversary of the discovery of insulin, which was November 14 last year; and the new $20 note recently released last week, a Vimy Memorial theme just before Remembrance Day.

With that taken into consideration, and most new banknotes are normally first issued on a Wednesday (the only exceptions being the current $100 and $50 bills were first issued on a Monday), my prediction is that the new $5 note will likely be issued for the first time on November 13, 2013, the 32nd anniversary of Canadarm's first use in space.  But, as with all predictions, take it with a grain of salt.  The Bank of Canada may issue the new $5 note on a date that we least expect.

As for the new $10 note vs. the Trans-Canadian Railroad, I don't know exactly when the anniversary of its first use was, I thought I read somewhere the first runs (with Sir John A. MacDonald and somebody) were early in the month of July when it happened?  I don't know the exact date of the Railroad's first use was, so I can place my money on the new $10 note being first issued anywhere between May and July 2013.

In the late 1860s, there was an American movement to plan an economic takeover of Canada, forcing Canada to seek admission into the United States. The people involved wanted control of the railroads and the trade that rail traffic generated. Sir Hugh Allan was president of the Canadian Pacific Railway. Some of his American partners shared this view and wanted a Canadian railway to travel south from Ontario to connect with the Northern Pacific Railroad, which was nearing completion. This would leave the Canadian northwest open for American trade. Canadians, fearing any close contact with the United States, were skeptical of any deals involving US financiers.

Macdonald and Cartier approached Allan, promising the lucrative contract to build the trans-Canadian railway in exchange for a financial contribution to the Conservative Party. Allan gave them close to $350,000 from American investors. Macdonald's Conservative government came to power, and Allan got the contract. But by the end of 1872, the American investors had begun to lose patience when Allan hadn't undertaken the work and they seemed to be excluded from the railroad project. Rumours of embezzlement began to circulate in Ottawa.

On July 18, 1873, The Globe, a liberal newspaper from Toronto, published a telegram from Macdonald to Allan in which Macdonald begged the powerful businessman for money. The press seized the story and revealed the American funding sources that contributed to the Conservative victory. Macdonald submitted his government's resignation on November 5.