Bank of Canada unveils commemorative bank note to celebrate Canada’s 150th anniversary of Confederation
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Media Relations
613-782-8782
Ottawa, Ontario
7 April 2017
Bank of Canada Governor Stephen S. Poloz and Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance Ginette Petitpas Taylor today unveiled a commemorative $10 bank note celebrating the 150th anniversary of Confederation. This special note—showcasing our history, land and culture—was revealed during a ceremony at the Bank’s head office in Ottawa. It will enter into circulation on 1 June.
“This bank note is intended to captivate our imagination and instill pride in what we, as a nation, have accomplished,” said Governor Poloz. “It celebrates the natural beauty and majesty of our land and some of the important parliamentarians who helped shape our great country.”
The intricately designed note is unique in many ways. For the first time, four individuals are portrayed on the front of a Canadian bank note: Sir John A. Macdonald, Sir George-Étienne Cartier, Agnes Macphail and James Gladstone or Akay-na-muka—his Blackfoot name. With Parliament’s Hall of Honour in the background, these four parliamentarians remind us that Canada has been shaped by the vision, courage and effort of people of different backgrounds.
Upon circulation, the commemorative note will mark the first time that a Canadian woman and an Indigenous Canadian are depicted as portrait subjects on a Bank of Canada bank note. The design also incorporates Inuit and Metis cultural elements: a colourful reproduction of the artwork Owl’s Bouquet by world-renowned Inuit artist Kenojuak Ashevak; and the distinctive arrow sash pattern, an important symbol of the Métis nation.
“Canada’s diversity is our greatest strength,” said Ms. Petitpas Taylor. “As we celebrate Canada 150 we are reminded of what makes us who we are—from our shared history, to our cultures and languages to the breathtaking natural beauty that is instantly recognized around the world. On behalf of the Government of Canada I thank Governor Poloz and the Bank of Canada for their contribution to this truly national celebration.”
The Canada 150 note also showcases Canada’s natural beauty and unique landscapes. Five different landscapes representing the various regions of Canada are featured on the other side of the note: the Lions/Twin Sisters (Western Canada), a wheat field (Prairie provinces), the Canadian Shield (Central Canada), Cape Bonavista (Eastern Canada) and the Northern lights (Northern Canada).
The commemorative $10 note also has new security features, including a colour-shifting arch depicting an arch found in the Memorial Chamber on Parliament Hill, as well as three-dimensional maple leaves.
A comprehensive consultation process was undertaken by the Bank to ensure that this commemorative bank note reflects the input of Canadians. The ideas and suggestions received through public opinion research, consultation and focus groups influenced the note’s content and have been carefully incorporated into the design.
Starting in June, the Bank of Canada will issue 40 million of these commemorative bank notes and distribute them through financial institutions to be broadly available across Canada by 1 July.
The Canada 150 note will circulate alongside the current Polymer series $10 note, but it does not replace it. Both the current $10 note and the commemorative $10 note are of equal value and can be used interchangeably in transactions.
As announced in December, human rights and freedoms icon Viola Desmond will be featured on a new $10 note, which will mark another historic first: Desmond will become the first Canadian woman to be featured on a regularly circulating Bank of Canada bank note, expected in late 2018.
Notes to Editors:
Visit our website to find out more about each element featured on the $10 commemorative bank note.
View videos about the commemorative bank note and its security features.
Download photos from the Bank of Canada’s Flickr gallery.
Learn about the public consultation the Bank undertook to inform the visual content and design of this commemorative bank note.
Financial institutions will be distributing this commemorative note over the counter in branches starting 1 June 2017.
This is the fourth time that the Bank of Canada has issued a commemorative note. The first, issued in 1935, celebrated the Silver Jubilee of King George V; the second, issued in 1967, marked the centennial of Confederation; and the third, issued in 2015, honoured the historic reign of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, who became the longest-reigning sovereign in Canada’s modern era.
Find out more about our Principles for Bank Note Design.
Consult the Bank of Canada’s bank notes web pages.
Contact Media Relations for B-roll, available upon request.
http://www.bankofcanada.ca/2017/04/bank-canada-unveils-commemorative-bank-note/Unveiling of Commemorative Bank Note Marking the 150th Anniversary of Canada
Remarks
Stephen S. Poloz - Governor
Ottawa, Ontario
7 April 2017
Available as: PDF
We at the Bank of Canada are proud to have produced this special note commemorating Canada’s 150th anniversary. We’ve only ever produced three other such bank notes in our 82-year history, so believe me when I say this is a big deal.
Developing any bank note is a long and involved process, especially so with this one. We’ve been working on it since 2014, and more than 5,000 individual Canadians have fed into the process. We asked them if they wanted to see the past, the present or the future on the note. In true Canadian form, the answer to this question was “All three.”
The design was inspired by that input and carefully incorporates many of the ideas we heard on how to best represent the 150th anniversary of Confederation.
Isn’t it amazing how much history you can fit onto a little piece of polymer?
All of the historical elements in the note’s design show why this year calls for a big celebration!
This bank note not only reflects the pride we feel about our country and its accomplishments, it also, we hope, instills in Canadians a different kind of confidence.
The Bank is responsible for the design, production and distribution of Canada’s bank notes. And while bank notes reflect Canada’s society, culture and history, it’s also our job to ensure that they are durable and difficult to counterfeit—in short, so that Canadians can have confidence in their money.
From a design perspective, when we asked Canadians what they wanted to see, more than anything else, they said Canada’s landscapes. So if we look at the back of the note, we will see several images of Canada’s natural beauty, seamlessly woven together—from sea to sea to sea.
From left to right, we start in the west with the Lions—or the Twin Sisters, as the Squamish people know them—the peaks of the North Shore Mountains, which overlook Vancouver. In the foreground, we can see Capilano Lake.
Moving east, we come to the Prairies. We see wheat, the iconic crop of Canada’s Prairie provinces and one of the most important cultivated crops in Canada. This image reminds Canadians of the importance of the role family farms played in the expansion of our country and of the Prairies as the breadbasket of our nation.
Then the note takes us to the Canadian Shield, that ancient mass of rock that covers roughly half of the total land area of Canada. This is a view that many Ottawans may find familiar: forest, rock and water, minus the blackflies. The image used on this bank note is inspired by a photograph taken at the soon-to-be-created parc national d’Opémican in the Abitibi-Témiscamingue region of Quebec. The Kipawa River pictured here flows out of the park and into the Ottawa River. Those waters eventually run past our doorsteps here and down to Montréal, where they merge with the St. Lawrence.
Moving right, we go to the east coast of Canada and an image of Cape Bonavista in Newfoundland and Labrador. This may very well have been the view that John Cabot saw when he landed in 1497.
Above these images of Canada, we see the northern lights as they would appear if we were in Wood Buffalo National Park, home to the world’s largest dark-sky preserve.
Now some of you may be old enough to remember the Centennial bank note produced by the Bank of Canada in 1967. Many people still have some of them tucked away.
I know I will be keeping one of these new notes. We have produced 40 million of them, just more than enough for every Canadian. They will be available as of June 1st.
As all of you celebrate Canada’s big birthday this year, I encourage you to take a close look at this special note. It will be a little piece of history. I hope this bank note captivates your imagination and instills pride in who we are and how far we have come as a nation. It celebrates our land, our history and our culture.
It’s a bank note that reminds us of how much we have to celebrate as Canadians.
Thank you. Merci beaucoup.
Content Type(s): Press, Speeches
http://www.bankofcanada.ca/2017/04/unveiling-commemorative-bank-note-marking-150th-anniversary-canada/
