Frontier (banknotes)
[9] Canada became the ninth country to print all its banknotes using a polymer substrate, following Australia, Bermuda, Brunei, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Papua New Guinea, Romania, and Vietnam.
[17] By the end of the development cycle, nearly 15 million test banknotes of various designs, implementing different security features, and using various substrates and techniques, had been printed.
[28] From late 2009 to early 2012, the prototype designs were shown to 30 focus groups in Calgary, Fredericton, Montreal, and Toronto on a $53,000 contract by the Strategic Counsel to discover "potential controversies".
[19] The focus groups rejected images such as aboriginal art, ice wine, and portraits of Terry Fox, Tommy Douglas, and Lester B.
[24] The themes for the final designs were announced to the public at a media event on 20 June 2011 by Mark Carney, the Governor of the Bank of Canada, Jim Flaherty, the Minister of Finance, and William J. S. Elliott, commissioner of the RCMP.
[32][22] The Bank of Canada expected to save about 25% on production costs (about $200 million) compared to printing paper money with similar counterfeiting resistance.
[39][35] Two 3 μm thick layers of white opacifier are applied to the upper and lower surface of the substrate, except for masked areas that are intended to remain transparent.
[49][50] It was first issued after a national ceremony hosted by Hadfield and Mark Carney, Governor of the Bank of Canada, from the Canadian Space Agency headquarters in Saint-Hubert, Quebec on 7 November 2013.
[54] Bank of Canada Chief of Currency Gerry Gaetz was required by NASA to sign an agreement that the banknote brought to the International Space Station would not be "sold or used for fundraising purposes".
[52] Hadfield travelled to the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, where he, Thomas Marshburn, and Roman Romanenko were launched aboard Soyuz TMA-07M on 19 December 2012 and docked with the ISS.
[55] Originally, Hadfield was to record a video which would be broadcast during the unveiling ceremony, but on 7 March 2013, the plan was changed because an executive at the Bank of Canada wanted a live event.
[52] The plan was scripted to include press conference speeches by Jim Flaherty and Mark Carney, the latter of whom would be interrupted by a phone call revealed to be from Hadfield.
[52] The prototype banknote unveiled by Hadfield on the International Space Station was returned to the Bank of Canada on 7 November 2013, which put it in its Currency Museum.
[25] The banknote was first circulated on 7 November 2013, the 128th anniversary of the ceremonial last spike driven into the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) at Craigellachie, British Columbia.
[59] A national ceremony hosted by Deputy Governor of the Bank of Canada Tiff Macklem and the chief executive officer of Via Rail Marc Laliberté at the Pacific Central Station in Vancouver was held that day.
The obverse features four portraits: John A. Macdonald, George-Étienne Cartier, Agnes MacPhail, and James Gladstone, and the "Canada 150" logo at upper right.
The reverse depicts five landscapes: The Lions and Capilano Lake; fields of Prairie wheat; the Canadian Shield in Quebec; the Atlantic coast at Cape Bonavista; and northern lights in Wood Buffalo National Park.
The holographic window includes the national coat of arms and a representation of the artwork Owl's Bouquet by Inuit artist Kenojuak Ashevak.
[32][48] The memorial was erected on the highest point of Vimy Ridge on land permanently granted to Canada by the Government of France in 1922 to honour Canadian military service during World War I.
[27] The banknote was unveiled and released into circulation at a national ceremony at the Canadian Coast Guard port facility in Quebec, and also at several regional events, on 26 March 2012.
[28] Similarly, the electrocardiogram track of the beat of a healthy human heart[28] represents the 1950 invention of the pacemaker by John Alexander Hopps, the "father of Canadian biomedical engineering".
[68] The DNA strand is adapted from a computer-generated image created by the University of Ottawa; it honours the researchers who have contributed to the mapping of the human genome and is meant to evoke the future of medical innovation in Canada rather than its history.
[71] The banknotes feature a large clear window through which passes a stripe of holographic metallic foil that changes colour based on angle.
[79] They were described by New Westminster police sergeant Diana McDaniel as "very well done", but they were missing three security features in the reproduction—a line of printed numerals in the transparent window, the flag atop the East Block in the lower metallic foil, and the raised ink.
[87] The 2009 focus group report stated that the image of the train on the $10 banknote was attractive but uninspiring and outdated, and it drew complaints from people in Atlantic Canada where many "railway links have been decommissioned".
[19] Sabbir Kabir of the Canadian National Vending Alliance stated that the sample banknotes were not the same as those introduced into circulation, such as the image being offset in one version or each printing being cut differently.
[92] In July 2013, a petition organized by historian Merna Forster and addressed to Stephen Poloz and Jim Flaherty campaigned to have the Bank of Canada feature "significant Canadian women" on banknotes.
[96] The petition was delivered to Poloz, who stated that the Bank of Canada was "absolutely open to the idea" of incorporating portraits of famous Canadian women in future banknote series.
[98] A spokeswoman for the Chinese Canadian National Council stated that the revisions to the image of the scientist on the $100 banknote reflected the Bank of Canada "caving to ... racist feedback".
[106] In March 2012, the Canadian National Institute for the Blind issued a press release lauding the "touch, sight and electronic signal features" of the polymer banknotes.
