Brand New Canadian $10 Bill Unveiled

Published March 5, 2018 at 4:28 am

A new face is set to grace our $10 bill and it’s a big deal for Canada!

A new face is set to grace our $10 bill and it’s a big deal for Canada!

The new $10 bank note featuring civil rights pioneer Viola Desmond, known for refusing to leave a whites-only area of a movie theatre in 1946 in New Glasgow, Nova Scotia, was unveiled on International Women’s Day.

“She was subsequently jailed, convicted and fined,” according to the Bank of Canada. “Her court case was the first known legal challenge against racial segregation brought forth by a Black woman in Canada.”

The new bill was unveiled at Halifax Central Library on Thursday.

This is the first time a Canadian woman will be featured on the face of a regularly circulating Canadian bank note.

Photo courtesy of the Bank of Canada, Desmond circa 1940

Desmond was also a school teacher and she opened up her own beauty studio and then a beauty school – a role model, entrepreneur, and inspiration in the 1930s and 1940s.

The $10 bank note makeover, which will start to circulate later this year, will kick off a larger roll-out of new bank notes featuring iconic Canadians. 

The $5 and some higher denominations are set to undergo a revamp.

The future $5 note will feature another iconic Canadian, and Canada’s first Prime Minister, Sir John A. Macdonald, and our first francophone Prime Minister, Sir Wilfrid Laurier, will be honoured on our higher-value bank notes.

“This change will take place when the higher-value notes are redesigned for the next series,” said the Bank of Canada. “These changes mean that former prime ministers William Lyon Mackenzie King and Sir Robert Borden will no longer be portrayed on bank notes.”

The $20 bill will still feature the reigning monarch.

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