Canada’s newest bank notes — $50 bills made from a plastic polymer — started circulating Monday. Sadly the Famous Five aren’t on them.
The front of the new note features a portrait of Sir William Lyon Mackenzie King, while the back depicts the Arctic research icebreaker CCGS Amundsen. Missing are the Famous Five, the women who are responsible for women being considered “persons under the law” in Canada.
“It may seem like an innocuous change, but it is a symbol of a pattern of assault on women’s issues by the Harper government,” said Newfoundland and Labrador Association of Public and Private Employees President Carol Furlong. “The battle that these women fought to have women recognized under the law as people is a crucial part of our country’s history. The decision to remove a reference to these women, their struggle and their historic accomplishment from the new 50 dollar bill should be reversed.”
Read more:
CBC, New plastic $50 bills go into circulation, http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2012/03/26/fifty-dollar-bank-note.html
The Famous Five Clearly Not Important: http://womensaccessfoundation.org/blog/2011/12/07/the-famous-five-clearly-not-important/
NAPPE News Release, http://women.gov.ns.ca/assets/files/NEWS%20RELEASE_NAPE%20President%20opposed%20to%20removal%20of%20Famous%20Five%20from%2050%20Dollar%20Bill.pdf
Feminist Philosophers 
Harper needs to be deported to china and take his nwo money with him.
Perhaps they could (should) have been transplanted to the five-dollar bill, where they could have reached a much broader audience.
But if they are put on the fiver, how will the world know that we value hockey?
Reblogged this on thewellgroomedfeminist and commented:
Wow.. are we really taking these steps back? I can’t get over how disrespectful this is. Who makes these decisions?!?! And where is our voice?
Kate Norlock,
IIRC, the hockey scene is being removed anyway.
China? Put Harper and his cabinet in a “Newfie firing squad” formation:
Drop Ann Coulter and Sarah Palin in the middle of the formation and tell the would-be ‘executioners’ that they’re about to blow away a couple of single mothers who are costing Big Business a whopping $7000/year.
Hell, for a scene like that I’d volunteer to be the ‘executed’. I can duck :-P teeheehee…
And who are the Famous Five? Good video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0UrVCzcGWFo
Not to defend Harper on anything, but women were persons under the law in general before the Famous Five. What the “persons” case was actually about was whether or not a woman could be appointed to the Senate. Still a very important thing, but it bugs me the way we get taught about it as if women were considered chattels or pets before that came along.
I love the new look the new fifty dollar bill got I think all the canadian paper moneys should get that kind of make-over there’s nothing wrong with a little change now and then
I dont see how its offensive. Dont you canadians have history classes in your childrens schools?
They are changing all the bills, was it offensive to the RCMP when the musical ride got removed from the 50 to put an owl on it? was it offensive to animal rights when the owl was removed for the famous five?
Every new series of Canadian banknotes has a brand new image on the back, that’s how you know it’s a new series.
i like canada
Actually David women were not people under the law. That is why they could not be on the senate.