Nothing about this phenomenon is insincere or contrived, and it seems to transcend the English-speaking world with ease. In its highest form it would exclude, for example, Wayne Gretzky, who must be one of the two or three most famous Canadians: there are too many places on Earth that know or care nothing of ice hockey.īut how many cycles of fashion has Anne outlived how many avant-garde authors and poets of her time has she seen off into oblivion? There is something about her that has unfailingly charmed readers of 1. If you think about the global noteworthiness standard, there are not many Canadians of any race or gender who can meet it. The choice of Viola Desmond came at the end of a formal search for historic women to put on a banknote, and I am still baffled by the absence of one name from the shortlist: that of the novelist L.M. Gladstone, a leader and cultural arbiter who was never in electoral politics at all.) (It is even a point in favour of Macphail, who was certainly a politician but whose most enduring legacy may be the Elizabeth Fry Society of Canada, and a strong point for Sen. Desmond was an ordinary citizen rather than a politician, someone who worked for equality in the community rather than exclusively in a legislature. We may not care whether anybody in Japan or New Zealand has heard of Viola Desmond, but because she is on a 10-dollar bill, our kids will hear about her.
The Bank’s recent announcement that it will create a $10 note for ordinary use with the image of Nova Scotia businesswoman and civil rights fighter Viola Desmond demonstrates the educational argument against the world-significance standard, in favour of local figures - particularly ones who stood up for universal principles of justice, as Desmond did, and who do not yet have the wide recognition they might have deserved. In the past I have proposed a very high standard for banknote appearances: I have argued that money represents us to the world, and that we should try to honour Canadians of permanent and global significance on bills, rather than local heroes. This is a purely artistic problem: Cartier and Agnes Macphail and James Gladstone are all extraordinary people worth celebrating, but if that is the case then perhaps they merit their own banknote rather than a share of a very cluttered one. Third voice: “So, what, it’s just two white dudes now?” Ominous silence.
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