New $10 bill features the first Canadian woman and first indigenous person on a bank note

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      To celebrate the 150th year since Confederation, Canada's central bank has unveiled a new bank note.

      The new $10 bill features four Canadians: founding prime minister John A. Macdonald, Sir George-Étienne Cartier, Agnes Macphail, and James Gladstone, a.k.a. Akay-na-muka.

      Cartier was a father of Confederation and the minister of militia and national defence from 1867 to 1873.

      Macphail was the first woman to be elected to Parliament, representing Grey Southeast and later Gray-Bruce from 1921 to 1940.

      Gladstone, a Cree by birth and adopted into the Blackfoot Nation, was the first indigenous person to serve in the Canadian Senate.

      Macphail is the first Canadian woman and Gladstone is the first indigenous person to appear on a Canadian bank note.

      “This bank note is intended to captivate our imagination and instill pride in what we, as a nation, have accomplished,” Bank of Canada governor Stephen Poloz said in a news release. “It celebrates the natural beauty and majesty of our land and some of the important parliamentarians who helped shape our great country.”

      The new $10 bill includes a reproduction of Owl's Bouquet by Inuit artist Kenojuak Ashevak, as well as an arrow sash pattern, which is a symbol for the Métis nation.

      Stephen Poloz shows off the country's newest bank note.
      Bank of Canada

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