2016-12-26 Mon

Viola Desmond is known as Canadian Rosa Parks because she occupied a seat in the whites-only section of a Nova Scotia movie theatre in 1946. It was announced on 8th December that she would be featured on the next Canadian $10 note which will enter circulation in 2018 as the first in the series of new notes. It would also be the first time when a portrait of a Canadian woman will be featured on a circulating Canadian banknote.

Minister of Finance Bill Morneau chose Desmond from four other candidates — poet E. Pauline Johnson; Elsie MacGill, an electrical engineer from the University of Toronto; Quebec suffragist Idola Saint-Jean; and 1928 Olympic track and field medalist Fanny Rosenfeld. Over 26,300 submissions from across Canada were cut down to 461 eligible candidates.

Desmond was a successful Nova Scotia businesswoman who was jailed, convicted and fined for her actions in the theatre. She in a way led the fight against racial discrimination during her times.