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Canadian Coins and $20 Bills: What Happens Now that The Queen is Dead?

Published 2022-09-08, 02:21 p/m
© Reuters.

By Ketki Saxena 

Investing.com -- No, our current $20 Canadian banknotes - not to mention the loonie, toonie, quarters and plenty of other change - won’t suddenly become obsolete, now that Queen Elizabeth II, Queen of Great Britain and Canada has passed away, according to spokespersons, “peacefully at Balmoral House this afternoon”. 

The queen has been featured on Canadian bank notes since 1935, and it’s certainly the end of an era. 

While Prince Charles is now, with immediate effect since the passing of the Queen, the monarch of Great Britain and the head of the commonwealth, the Royal Mint and the Bank of Canada do not have a ready arsenal of Prince Charles Printed coins and banknotes ready at their disposal. 

As per a spokesperson quoted by the National Post, “Since choosing which effigy appears on future Canadian coins goes beyond our mandate, the Mint has not produced any advance tooling depicting a future, anticipated monarch.” 

For starters, the currency would also need to be minted or printed with the name of the monarch, and the new monarch’s name may or not be King Charles III (the first two English kinds of that name having a less than illustrious history: the first was beheaded,  or one thing, Charles may not even adopt the name King Charles III. 

The nomenclature King Charles doesn’t have the most awe-inspiring record (the first one was beheaded, for a start, while the second had the less than dubious distinction of escaping opposition by hiding in an Elm Tree). It’s a fair bet that the former Prince Charles may choose to go with one of his middle names: King George VII, continuing the tradition of his Hanoverian ancestors, King Arthur, reminiscent of the mythical Briton King, or even King Philip. 

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Secondly, the Royal Mint’s turnaround is extremely quick: coins can go from drawing to mint in a matter of days; the most significant delay is likely to be the Royal Family’s approval on the new portrait. The Queen has rejected Canadian designs in the past. 

The Bank of Canada, which produces banknotes, will be a little slower: the portrait of the new Monarch will be implemented whenever the Bank of Canada plans a new design for the $20 bill. 

Eventually however, the old currency will gradually be phased out and removed from circulation when worn out, although they will still remain legal tender. 

In the near future, Canada will have the new monarch on its notes and coins - although it may not be a popular proposition with Canadians: the National Post notes that while 55 per cent of Canadians were supportive of Canada continuing to recognize Queen Elizabeth, “by swearing oaths to her, putting her on currency and recognizing her as official head of state,” only 34 per cent of Canadians were in favor of doing the same under the former Prince Charles. 

In another interesting piece of tradition, when the new $20 notes are printed, the new Monarch will be facing right instead of left.  The design of coins is determined by a tradition going back at least to the time of Charles II (the Charles of the Elm Tree), which stipulates that the direction in which the head faces should alternate between the coinage of successive monarchs. 

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