Added: 02/14/2006 |
Canadian dollars are used instead of pound sterlingsCanadian dollars, CAD or C$, are the unit of currency of Canada. One hundred cents add up to one dollar.
Canada decided to use Canadian dollars instead of a pound sterling system because of the prevalence of Spanish dollars in North America in the 18th century and early 19th century and because of the standardization of the American dollar. The Canadas, in particular, favoured the dollar. The Bank of Montreal issued bank notes in dollars in 1817, whereas the Atlantic colonies, with stronger ties to Britain and weaker ones to the United States, preferred the ?.s.d. system. The Province of Canada declared that all accounts would be kept in dollars as of January 1, 1858, and ordered the issue of the first official Canadian dollars in the same year. The colonies that would come together in Canadian Confederation progressively adopted a decimal system over the next few years.
Finally, the government passed the Uniform Currency Act in April 1871, tying up loose ends as to the currencies of the various provinces and replacing them with a common Canadian dollar. The gold standard was temporarily abandoned during World War I, and definitively abolished on April 10, 1933.
Canadians use Canadian coins and bills (called "bank notes" officially, but not in ordinary usage) of similar denominations to money in the United States. The historical sizes of the coins less than 50? are identical to those of U.S. coins due to both nations using the Spanish dollar as the basis of their money.
Modest quantities of U.S. coinage circulate in Canada at par, and some Canadian coins (generally less than one-dollar) circulate in some places in the United States as well, though recent changes to the appearance and composition of Canadian coinage have made it more difficult for these coins to be used in the United States. In Canada, it is common to find U.S. 1?, 5?, 10?, and 25? coins in circulation (just as there are Australian 5c, 10c and 20c coins in New Zealand and vice versa). This interchangeability led to some concern when the United States Mint decided that the new Sacagawea Dollar coin would have the same colouring as the Canadian $1 coin, the "loonie", although this proved to be a non-issue.
Canadian English, like American English, uses the slang term "buck" for Canadian dollars; the word "loonie", owing to the loon on the back of the dollar coin, is also used to distinguish the Canadian dollar from other currencies, as in "The loonie performed well today on currency markets."
In French, the currency is also called le dollar; Canadian French slang terms include piastre or piasse (equivalent to "buck," but the original word used in eighteenth-century French to translate "dollar") and huard (equivalent to "loonie"), since huard is French for "loon", the animal appearing on the coin.
Canadian coins are issued by the Royal Canadian Mint and struck at their facilities in Winnipeg. Notes are issued by the Bank of Canada with the production of the bills being outsourced to the British American Bank Note Company Ltd and the Canadian Bank Note Company Ltd in accordance with the specifications and requirements of the Bank of Canada. All wording on bills appears in both Canada's official languages, English and French. The same applies to special wording on commemorative coins. All of the standard wording on the reverse sides of coins is identical in both languages. On the obverse sides, however, the name and title of Canada's monarch appear in an abbreviated-Latin circumscription. Currently, this reads "ELIZABETH II D. G. REGINA". The initials stand for "Dei Gratia"; the entire phrase means, "Elizabeth II, by the Grace of God, Queen".
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