When Will King Charles Grace our $20 Bill?

By Henry Srebrnik, Charlottetown Guardian

Partly as a response to U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade war, Prime Minister Mark Carney is trying to diversify our economy. He also is leaving behind Justin (“we have no culture”) Trudeau’s “post-national” nonsense, by rebranding Canada as a more European, even British, country.

There has even been talk about joining the European Union. In late January, a former foreign minister of Germany, Sigmar Gabriel, called for Canada to be invited into the EU. “They are more European than some European member states anyway,” he told Germany’s Pioneer Media.

In May Carney invited the King of Canada, Charles III, to give the Speech from the Throne opening the 45^th parliament, the first time that has happened in decades. As Canada’s head of state, Charles was there to represent the Crown, at the invitation of the prime minister, in the reading of the new Liberal government’s agenda and, in the words of one journalist, “to personify an institution designed to withstand the temporal shocks of history.”

In the face of American taunts and insults, Carney pressed Charles into service, asking the head of state to assert Canada’s sovereignty in the first throne speech delivered by a monarch in nearly 50 years. It was part of the new government’s renewed emphasis on Canadian nationalism and to send a not-so-subtle message to Washington.

By coming to Ottawa at a critical moment in Canadian history, the monarch reminded Canadians of the deep ties that bind them to the Crown. He chose words from “O Canada” to close his speech: “The True North is indeed strong and free.”

Carney, whose wife is British, even, perhaps because of his time as head of the Bank of England, apparently uses British spelling! The 2025 budget spells organize as organise, catalyze as catalyse, and recognize as recognise.

But how permanent is this new “elbows up” nationalism, in a country with territorial claims by hundreds of First Nations, millions of new Canadians for whom Britain is completely irrelevant, and, as always, tensions with Québécois nationalism, which certainly has no use for British-derived iconography. A sovereigntist government may very well be elected in Quebec next year. Meanwhile in Alberta, separatists may succeed in organizing a referendum on the province’s independence.

Might this be why we are told that new $20 bills featuring the face of King Charles won’t be in circulation for another few years. The government claims it is working on a new design for Canada’s most circulated bank note but it won't be ready for circulation until 2027, according to a May 26, 2024 story on the CBC’s website. The process of issuing new notes involves research and development, design, including security features, and, finally, production, according to the Bank of Canada.

These are, I suspect, excuses.

Many Canadians are not thrilled that King Charles is the country’s head of state and may not care to see his face in their wallets. An Angus Reid Institute poll conducted in late April 2023, ahead of his May 6, 2023 coronation, indicated that an average of just 38 per cent of respondents wanted to see the new sovereign on their coins and bills. Support was highest in Ontario and the Prairie provinces, and lowest in Quebec.

Of course, that was a year and a half before Trump was elected and began taunting Canadians with his “51^st state” sarcasm, leading to Trudeau’s downfall and Carney’s “elbows up” election victory last April 28.

Perhaps a Liberal minority government doesn’t want to stir up nationalist fervour in Quebec, where separatist sentiment has been resurging. And Canada has far more pressing problems on its table, including a brewing rebellion in Alberta. Is this why, more than three years since Queen Elizabeth II passed away, King Charles is still not on our twenty-dollar bill?  Inquiring minds – not just royalists! – want to know.