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| Bank of Canada Unveils Bill Reid $20 Banknote | At 10am on August 25, 2004, in the Vancouver Playhouse Theater, the Bank of Canada hosted a multilingual hour-long spectacle unveiling the new Arts and Culture themed, high security $20 banknote, featuring artwork by Bill Reid and poetry by Gabrielle Roy.
The well organized ceremony, hosted by the appropriately named "Bill" Richardson, a champion of the Arts, began with a ceremonial greeting by Burrard band elder Leonard George. |
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Federal Minister of National Revenue, John McCallum, spoke by video, and revealed the first portion of the new design, Reid's Mythic Messengers, currently on display at the Vancouver International airport, and introduced an interpretive dance by 17 year old Alex Wong. |
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B.C.'s Bank of Canada Board of Director, Barbara Hislop, brought on poet Gabrielle Roy's niece, Dr. Yolande Roy-Cyr for a reading from Roy's The Hidden Mountain, culminating in the lines that appear on the new note.
Bill Reid's widow, Martine Reid, spoke and introduced a trio of 16 year olds from Mayne Island, B.C. Named Bell Jar, they played a traditional composition on fiddle, guitar and acoustic bass as the audience admired a film of the Spirit of Haida Gwaii sculpture, which was used as the principal design feature of the new $20 note. There are two instances of the sculpture, one in the Canadian embassy in Washington and one in the international departures rotunda of Vancouver International Airport. |
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| The new notes are to be released into circulation on Wednesday September 29, 2004. | ||
Deputy Bank of Canada Governor, Paul Jenkins, spoke on the security features of the new note and invited hereditary Haida Chief Jim Hart to unveil the artwork for the Bill Reid $20 bill. Nika Collison, Bill Reid's granddaughter, played traditional drum pieces during the unveiling, and Chief Jim Hart concluded with a ceremonial dance. Jorge Peral, art director of the Canadian Bank Note Company took five months to produce the contemporary portrait of Queen Elizabeth, the Second used on this new note and adapt pieces of Bill Reid's well known works for the new twenty which include; The Raven and the First Men sculpture, now on display at the University of British Columbia's Museum of Anthropology, and a Haida Grizzly Bear, from the ceremonial drum of North Vancouver's Artists for Kids Trust. |
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| Peral, a Mexican born designer, worked on the new $5 and $10 "Canadian Journey" Series banknotes, plus notes for the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Mexico, and Nicaragua, as well as stamps and coins for Canada and Mexico. | ||
Prefix EYG notes were used in the launch. The main colour of the Bill Reid $20 is a West Coast rain forest deep green. The portrait of the Queen shows her age tastefully. This note is the only Canadian note that still features the Queen, who first appeared on a Canadian $20 bill as a princess, aged 9, in 1935. |
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The Haida art elements are spread out over the serial number side of the note to accomodate the watermark portrait, see- through numerals, and windowed colour-shifting thread security features. The Gabrielle Roy quote appears at the left, underneath the large 20. The new twenty is the work horse of Canadian banknotes and Bill Reid is an internationally-known, and popular artist. This should be a popular new note. |
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| All bank note images © Bank of Canada, used with permission. | ||
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