User:Mindmatrix/Skunkworks/2018 series (Canadian banknotes)

The 2018 series is the unnamed upcoming banknote series to be issued by the Bank of Canada, following the Frontier Series which was released in 2011.

After the Bank of Canada announced that one of the banknotes in the series would feature a portrait of a woman on the obverse, it received thousands of nominations from the public, ultimately leading to twelve final candidates from the 461 eligible nominations, and a shortlist of five women from which Viola Desmond was selected. Her portrait will appear on the $10 banknote, which was unveiled on International Women's Day in March 2018 and will be the first banknote of the series to be released into circulation in late 2018.

Portraits
A portrait of Viola Desmond is depicted on the obverse of the $10 banknote. She was selected from a shortlist of five names drawn from a list of 12 final candidates of Canadian women whose portrait would appear on the banknote.

The Bank of Canada announced that the $5 banknote would feature a portrait of someone other that Wilfrid Laurier, the former Prime Minister of Canada whose portrait had been on the $5 banknote of all Canadian banknote series since the Scenes of Canada.

The portrait of John A. Macdonald, whose portrait had been on the $10 banknote of all Canadian banknote series since the Scenes of Canada, and Wilfrid Laurier will instead feature on the $50 banknote and the $100 banknote. The portraits of William Lyon Mackenzie King and Robert Borden, both of whose portraits appeared on banknotes starting from the Scenes of Canada series, will not be used in this series. The $20 banknote will continue to feature a portrait of Elizabeth II.

Selection
The Bank of Canada opened a public nomination process on 8 March 2016 (International Women's Day), specifying that women whose names were nominated must satisfy several criteria. These were: that the nominee be a Canadian, either by birth or naturalization; that she has "demonstrated outstanding leadership, achievement or distinction in any field", either in the country's service, or to the benefit of its citizens; and that she be deceased for at least 25 years. The nominee could not be a fictional individual. Over 26,000 names were nominated before the closing date of 15 April 2016.

On 4 April 2016, the Governor of the Bank of Canada Stephen Poloz announced the creation of an advisory council that would identify all candidates that satisfied the criteria, from which it would select a long list of names and finally a shortlist of five final candidates. The council consisted of six members: Gurjinder Basran, a writer; Michael Redhead Champagne, a youth activist; Margaret Conrad, a historian; Francine Descarries, a sociologist; Perdita Felicien, a hurdler; Merna Forster, a historian; and Dominic Giroux, President and Vice-Chancellor of Laurentian University. Of the submitted names, the advisory council identified 461 that satisfied the Bank of Canada criteria.

Twelve candidates were chosen by the advisory council for the final long list. These were:


 * Pitseolak Ashoona, artist
 * Emily Carr, artist
 * Thérèse Casgrain, politician and reformer
 * Viola Desmond, entrepreneur and civil rights activist
 * Lotta Hitschmanova, humanitarian
 * E. Pauline Johnson, poet
 * Elsie MacGill, first woman in the world to earn an aeronautical engineering degree
 * Nellie McClung, suffragette and one of The Famous Five
 * Lucy Maud Montgomery, writer
 * Fanny Rosenfeld, athlete
 * Gabrielle Roy, writer
 * Idola Saint-Jean, journalist and educator

A survey was undertaken to assess public opinion of these nominees, and its results were considered with the opinion of historians to create a short list of five candidates.

Opinion articles in newspapers promoted various of the nominees. The Waterloo Region Record printed an opinion article published by the Council of Ontario Deans of Engineering supporting the nomination of Elsie MacGill.

The shortlist consisted of Viola Desmond, E. Pauline Johnson, Elsie MacGill, Fanny Rosenfeld, Idola Saint-Jean, from which Desmond was selected.

Banknotes
The series consists of baknotes with denominations of $5, $10, $20, $50, and $100.

$10 note
The $10 banknote features a portrait of Viola Desmond on the obverse. Desmond was a black Canadian woman resident in Nova Scotia who operated a beauty shop and developed a line of cosmetics. En route to a business meeting in Sydney on 8 November 1946, her car broke down in New Glasgow and required a day to complete repairs. That night, she attended the Roseland Theatre to watch the film The Dark Mirror, and wanted to purchase a floor seat because of her near-sightedness. She was denied a floor seat ticket because she was black and the theatre had an unofficial but "customary" segregation policy, and she refused to sit in the balcony. She was arrested, and eventually charged for tax evasion for failing to pay the 1 cent amusement tax, reflecting the difference in price between seats on the main floor and the balcony. She was released after paying a fine of $20, and $6 in court costs. This story, and the continued activism of the Nova Scotia Association for the Advancement of Coloured People, eventually led to the abolition of Nova Scotia's segregation laws in 1954. On 15 April 2010, Desmond was issued a posthumous apology and free pardon by the Government of Nova Scotia, recognizing that Desmond's "conviction was in error". It was the first posthumous free pardon issued in Canada.

On the reverse of the note are images and symbols depicting social justice, civil rights, and freedom. Among them are the Canadian Museum of Human Rights, an excerpt of subsection (1) of Section 15 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and a laurel leaf.

The banknote was publicly revealed on International Women's Day in 2018 at an unveiling ceremony by Stephen Poloz (Governor of the Bank of Canada), Bill Morneau (Minister of Finance for the Government of Canada), and Wanda Robson, sister of Viola Desmond.

Release
The release of the banknotes in this series will be staggered over many years. The first to be released will be the $10 banknote in late 2018. The $5 banknote will be released several years later, and the higher denomination banknotes "will follow every two to three years".