New banknote worth more than $10

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 22/11/2018 (2545 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

On April 15, 2010, in a ceremony in Halifax, the late Viola Desmond received an apology and a posthumous free pardon, which recognized her innocence.

On Nov. 19, 2018, in a ceremony at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights (CMHR) in Winnipeg, the Bank of Canada formally put into circulation a new $10 bill featuring a portrait of the civil rights icon, who died in 1965 at age 50.

It is arguably that second event that should most gladden the hearts of Canadians, because while Viola Desmond does not need our apologies, Canadians most definitely need to celebrate her courage and ensure that her story of defiance in the face of injustice is never forgotten.

Making Ms. Desmond the first Canadian woman commemorated on a banknote — a vertically oriented bill that features the CMHR on the other side — will allow Canadians to literally carry this remarkable woman’s story with them wherever they go.

“Banknotes are not only a secure means of payment that Canadians can use with confidence — they also tell the stories that have shaped our country,” Bank of Canada governor Stephen Poloz said in Winnipeg. “Now, each time this new vertical $10 bill changes hands, it will remind us of our continued pursuit of human rights and social justice in Canada.”

A black Halifax beautician, Ms. Desmond became a champion in the fight against racial injustice on Nov. 8, 1946, when she was jailed and fined for refusing to leave the whites-only section of a New Glasgow, N.S., movie theatre.

The ensuing legal battle became one of the most high-profile cases of racial discrimination in Canadian history, and her simple act of defiance inspired the struggle against racial segregation in this country. A map of the historic North End of Halifax, where she lived and worked, is also shown on the new note.

The saga began when Ms. Desmond made an unplanned stop in the small community of New Glasgow after her car broke down en route to a meeting in Sydney, N.S.

Told the repair would take hours, Ms. Desmond, 32 at the time, decided to watch a screening of the thriller The Dark Mirror at the Roseland Theatre. When she refused to leave her seat in the downstairs section, which was reserved for whites people, a police officer dragged her out and took her to jail.

Under theatre policy, black people were only permitted to sit in the balcony. For her “crime,” Desmond was jailed 12 hours. According to a Halifax newspaper, the Chronicle, the next morning in court the successful businesswoman was convicted of defrauding the province of a penny — the difference in sales tax on a 40-cent ticket to sit downstairs versus a 20-cent ticket for upstairs.

During her trial, it was clear Desmond had offered to pay the extra money for a downstairs ticket, but theatre staff would not accept it. She was ordered to pay a $20 fine, plus $6 for the theatre’s court costs.

She fought the case to the province’s Supreme Court, which ruled against her.

But it was never about tax fraud; it was always about using a legal technicality to enforce racial segregation.

As currency, Canada’s new banknote is worth precisely $10.

As a way to pay tribute to a Canadian woman who took a stand against racial injustice nine years before Rosa Parks famously refused to give up her seat for a white passenger on a city bus in Montgomery, Ala., it is priceless.