Democracy Gone Astray

Democracy, being a human construct, needs to be thought of as directionality rather than an object. As such, to understand it requires not so much a description of existing structures and/or other related phenomena but a declaration of intentionality.
This blog aims at creating labeled lists of published infringements of such intentionality, of points in time where democracy strays from its intended directionality. In addition to outright infringements, this blog also collects important contemporary information and/or discussions that impact our socio-political landscape.

All the posts here were published in the electronic media – main-stream as well as fringe, and maintain links to the original texts.

[NOTE: Due to changes I haven't caught on time in the blogging software, all of the 'Original Article' links were nullified between September 11, 2012 and December 11, 2012. My apologies.]

Wednesday, October 17, 2012

New $20 banknote costs Bank of Canada a pretty penny

OTTAWA — The Bank of Canada spent a sizable sum of taxpayer green to unveil its new green $20 banknote.

Canada’s central bank spent the equivalent of nearly 2,000 new $20 bills — or close to $40,000 in total — to announce the new polymer banknote and display a seven-storey image of it on the Bank of Canada’s headquarters in downtown Ottawa, reveal new documents obtained by Postmedia News under access to information legislation.

Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney and Finance Minister Jim Flaherty unveiled images of the new $20 banknote during a news conference in early May. The polymer notes have more security features and are harder to counterfeit than the current paper bills, while the new $20 bills are expected to last 2.5-times longer than today’s banknotes.

The new $20 bill, like the old one, is green and includes an updated portrait of Queen Elizabeth II on the front. The back of the note pays tribute to our country’s veterans and features the Canadian National Vimy Memorial located in France.

A seven-storey image of the front and back of the $20 bill was installed in May — at the cost of more than 1,920 new $20 banknotes — or about $38,472 — on the bank’s east tower to show off the new banknote and announce it will officially go into circulation in November.

Broken down, the central bank paid $35,832 (or about 1,792 worth of the banknotes) to a digital imaging company on the design, production and installation of the two images on the glass office tower, according to the documents.

The images were printed on a product called “Clearview,” which displays the note from the outside, but is transparent to people inside the building.

An additional $2,640 (or the equivalent of 132 new or old $20 banknotes) was also paid to a window washing company to clean the building’s glass tower and help prepare the seven-storey display between the second and eighth floors. The bank paid an additional $452 to a party rental company for a tent that was used for the outdoor news conference with Carney and Flaherty.

The images of the new $20 bill are affixed on the building facing the high-traffic corner of Wellington and Bank streets and will remain there for a total of six to 12 months.

“The $20 banknote is the most widely circulated note in the country. The Currency Department has looked for cost-effective and innovative solutions to promote the note,” say the documents obtained from the bank.

Julie Girard, currency spokesperson for the Bank of Canada, said approximately 800 million of the $20 bills are in circulation, or around half of all banknotes in Canada.

The bank felt it was important to promote the new bill and help educate Canadian consumers and retailers so they know it will gradually be released into circulation, beginning Nov. 7, she said.

“It’s a big change,” she said. “It’s a good return on investment to inform Canadians.”

The new $20 bills have already turned some heads. Focus groups commissioned by the Bank of Canada to gauge public opinion on the design found some people mistook the Vimy Memorial for New York’s Twin Towers, while some commented that images of the memorial’s sculptures were “too pornographic.”

Also, Carney publicly apologized after it was revealed the bank removed the image of an Asian woman from the initial design of its recently minted $100 note after focus groups expressed concerns about her ethnicity and the use of a single ethnic profile.

The new $50 and $100 polymer bills have already been released into circulation, with the remaining banknotes in the series — the $5 and $10 bills — to be issued by the end of 2013.

The theme of the new $10 bill is the Canadian train and linking the country by railway, while the $5 note symbolizes Canada’s contributions to the international space program through robotics innovation like Canadarm 2.

The federal government and Royal Canadian Mint already spent about $56,000 (5.6 million times the penny’s monetary value) to have Flaherty stamp the final Canadian penny produced for circulation during a news conference in May at the Mint in Winnipeg.

Original Article
Source: canada.com
Author: Jason Fekete 

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