Milestone a crucial first step

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This article was published 09/12/2016 (3462 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Did you know that when you put Viola Desmond on the $10 bill, all other tributes to Sir John A. Macdonald vanish into thin air?

That’s the conclusion you might reach if you listened to the people whining on social media Thursday. While many people were pleased when it was announced that the Nova Scotia civil rights pioneer and businesswoman will be the first Canadian woman to be featured in a portrait on our currency, others were incensed that the first prime minister of Canada was being “stripped of his honour.”

That sound you hear is me, sighing the world’s longest sigh. Because, you know, Sir John A. Macdonald is at risk of fading into irrelevance and obscurity because his face is no longer on the $10 bill.

In addition to his many statues, here is a short list of things named after Sir John A. Macdonald: schools, a parkway, a freeway, a Manitoba municipality, Ottawa’s airport and a peak in the Rocky Mountains. He also has a day named after him — Jan. 11 is Sir John A Macdonald day — but, as his Wikipedia entry notes, “it is not a federal holiday and generally passes unremarked.”

Macdonald has been featured on the $10 bill since 1971. Last year, he was featured on the toonie for his 200th birthday. As far as currency is concerned, he’s had a good run. Besides — and it’s as though people are deliberately choosing to ignore this point — Sir John A. Macdonald will still be featured on a banknote.

According to the Bank of Canada, Macdonald and Wilfred Laurier, who is currently on the $5, “will be honoured on our higher-value banknotes” when they are redesigned. Which prompted National Post columnist Andrew Coyne to tweet: “And we’re going to banish Macdonald and Laurier to bills nobody uses? This is a travesty.”

Besides having very different criteria for what constitutes a travesty, I’d argue that the “bills nobody uses” is all of them, but nothing makes people pretend they carry cash quite like putting a woman on the $10. Maybe banks should consider rolling out a series of debit cards featuring famous Canadians. That way, people can choose their own and we never have to talk about this issue again.

Still, joking aside, it is about time we had the portrait of a Canadian woman on our money, and Desmond is most deserving of that honour. Nine years before Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on that bus, Desmond refused to give up her seat in a whites-only section of a Nova Scotia movie theatre. She was forcibly removed and jailed overnight. She was unjustly convicted, and her court case made history: she became the first known legal challenge against racial segregation brought forth by a black woman in Canada.

Now, she’s made history again as the first Canadian woman to be featured on a Canadian banknote.

It’s possible that the first time you heard Viola Desmond’s name was on Thursday when the Bank of Canada announced her as the winner of its #bankNOTEable campaign. But perhaps having her face on our money will lead to discussions about who she was and what her fight represents. Maybe her story will be taught in schools. Maybe more pieces of our culture will eventually bear her name.

Getting a woman on a banknote isn’t an end — it never was. It’s a start. It’s an opportunity to honour, recognize and say the names of people too often forgotten by history.

Somehow, I think Sir John A. Macdonald will keep his place in the history books.

jen.zoratti@freepress.mb.caTwitter: @JenZoratti