Canada Circulates New $10 Bill With Message Of Equality And Human Rights

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The Canadian Museum for Human Rights, the only museum in the world exploring human rights as an aspiration for all people, is the site for Monday’s (Nov. 18, 2018) official launch of the new Canadian $10 bill, the museum announced.

Wanda Robson, Viola Desmond's sister, takes a look at the new bill during its unveiling in March 2018.Bank of Canada

The bill features a portrait of Viola Desmond as the first Canadian woman on a regularly circulating Bank of Canada note. The bank note is also covered with imagery that promotes equality and human rights, the museum said in a news release. The bill also depicts the museum building, an eagle feather and an excerpt from the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The eagle feather symbolizes “the important, ongoing journey for recognition of indigenous rights,” the museum said.

 

Museum president and CEO John Young was scheduled to join Bank of Canada Governor Stephen S. Poloz and Desmond’s sister, Wanda, Robson at the Winnipeg museum on Monday morning for the official launch of the vertically oriented purple bill.

 

“Canadians will now carry a story about human rights in their pockets,” he said in prepared remarks. “The circulation of this new banknote represents an incredible opportunity to provoke questions and conversations all across the country about topics like racism and reconciliation and hope for the future.”

 

Canadians had earlier responded to an open call for nominations for a woman on the banknote. That’s how Desmond was chosen. She was a black Novia Scotia business woman who was arrested and jailed in 1946 after refusing to leave the whites-only section of a theater. She died in 1965, but her case had became a symbol of Canada’s pursuit of rights and freedoms.

The Canadian Museum for Human Rights, the only one of its kind in the world, opened in 2014 in Winnipeg.CMHR photo

One of the permanent exhibits at the museum explores Desmond’s story. Another exhibit examines the fight for the rights of indigenous people, including the legacy of the Indian residential schools. More than 150,000 children from First Nations, Inuit and Metis families were sent to Indian residential schools in Canada between the 1880s and 1990s, often far from their homes. Many were abused and neglected, thousands died.

 

The museum is an exquisite and compelling space, and well worth a visit. Entering on ground level, visitors explore six levels of exhibits and 11 galleries by working their way up a series of inclined ramps that proceed from darkness to light. At the top is the Israel Asper Tower of Hope, where you can see panoramic views of Winnipeg.

 

More than a million people from across Canada and around the world have visited the museum since it opened in September 2014.

 

It can be an emotional visit, as the subject matter is impactful, dealing with some of the darkest moments in human history. But the museum mission of promoting respect for others and encouraging dialogue and inspiration temper despair.

 

Source

[vitorio]

Rosa Parks did something similar in a bus she ride in 1955.

 

Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosa_Parks