Canada - $10 Viola Irene Desmond Polymer Note Dated 2018

Canada / Kanada

Banque du Canada / Bank of Canada

On the 19.11.2018, a new $10 polymer note was issued honoring Viola Irene Desmond. Viola Desmond first became famous when she refused to leave the racial segregation reserved seats for the all whites seating area in the Roseland theater in New Glasgow, Nova Scotia in 1946 (November 8). The theater was then showing a movie called "The Dark Mirror" at the time. Whilst Viola Desmond argued that this was simply a racial discrimination as there was no formal laws enforcing segregation in movie theaters in New Glasgow nor it was any sign stating that either. However in those days, even they were no racial segregation laws in place, it did allowed business owners to enforce such racial discriminating rules if they wished to. Back in those days, seats were segregated where the main floor seating area were reserved for the whites and the balcony seats for the coloured people. The interesting fact was that Viola did asked for a main floor seat when she purchased the ticket. Unknown to her, the cashier at the theater sold her a balcony seat instead. When she was told that she can't sit at the main floor area, she went back to the cashier and asked to upgrade her seat but the cashier refused. Viola went back into the main floor theater and refused to leave. The manager of the theater called the police and she was then arrested and charged with tax violation of one cent. The court found her guilty and fined her $26 of which $6 was awarded to the theater. Following the court case, her lawyer Frederick William Bisset refused to bill her for his service.

It should be noted that Viola was not the first coloured person who got charged for such incident at the Roseland theater. There was another similar case happened in 1943. As for the Roseland theater in New Glasgow, it was built in 1913 and closed in 2015 to make way for office space.

Viola Desmond was born in 1914 (nee Viola Irene Davis) in Halifax Canada and died in 1965, aged 50 in New York United States. Since her passing, she has been honored with documentary films, a book, a song, a commemorative stamp, ferry and others. In 2010, she was granted a posthumous pardon, the first to be granted in Canada.

The theme for this note is human rights/International Women's Day. On the front, it has the portrait of Viola Irene Desmond and on the back is the Canadian Museum for Human Rights in Winnipeg. This note is printed on a vertical format, both front and back. The Human Rights day is observed yearly on the 10th of December by the United Nations since 1948.

Whilst this note is honoring Viola Desmond and her courage, it was not issued as a commemorative note. This is the 8th series of the Canadian banknote with other new denominations to follow at a later date.

This note also created history for Canada banknotes;
1) First time a portrait used that is not the Queen, King or Prime Ministers;
2) First time that a portrait of a woman who is not the Queen used on the note;
3) The note is printed on vertical format on both sides.

Ten Dollars

Dated 2018

Reverse

Footnote; -
I am not sure should I be using the word "interesting" here as how the case was managed to bring to the court? The authority at that time charged Viola for tax violation of 1 cent despite she was willing to pay for it not once but twice before she was arrested. How do they charged someone for tax violation when that same person did offered to pay for it?