In March, the Bank of Canada will be coming out with a new polymer $50. The current version of the bill has the image of Alberta’s Famous 5, but those five iconic women will soon be replaced by the CCGS Amundsen, an amazing part of Arctic technology and research.
This Arctic research vessel is going to swap the place of five women which we’ve certainly all learned about in school. Emily Murphy, Nellie McClung, Henrietta Muir Edwards, Louise McKinney and Irene Parlby were all human rights activists who won full political rights for Canadian women, and then later through the Person’s Case changed how women were viewed in the British Empire.
After 10 years on the $50 bill, the women are coming off even though Canadian landscape, animals and great men will remain. The CCGS Amundsen is an Arctic icebreaker, a special-purpose ship designed to move and navigate through ice-covered waters, which has been used to do much of Canada’s Arctic research in these past few years.
I don’t know whether or not I think that this is the right decision. On the one hand, I understand the importance of representing these iconic women, especially if they’re the ones who actually gained the right to vote for all us ladies out there. However, we should also be constantly celebrating the amazing things that we are doing now, in this century. I understand that the discoveries that  CCGS Amundsen didn’t exactly manage to make great strides in women’s rights, they did make great strides in the ice and science.
The back of our money should be used as an opportunity to educate Canadians, but should we be educating them about our future or our past? What do you think?
What a great and interesting article! I never really notice the people on the bill, but it does say a lot about Canada. We’ve changed from celebrating activism to celebrating science; kind of says a lot about what we deem as worthy to see on money, doesn’t it?