JOHNSON: Helping design a beautiful new Canadian $20 bill

On Sept. 3, 2026, in Ottawa, it was only fitting that Governor General Louise Arbour, the King’s official representative in Canada, took the lead in unveiling the new Canadian $20 bill.

And as then Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had promised the Canadian people back at the time of King Charles’ coronation, the King’s portrait features prominently on the front of the bill. Beyond the King’s image what one’s eyes are immediately drawn to on this panel of the bill are flowers, greenery, leaves, maple leaves, and poppies.

As the Bank of Canada explains on its website introducing this bill to the Canadian public (just Google bank of Canada new Canadian $20 bill), these botanical images recognize and honour the King’s lifelong “advocacy of sustainable action and his commitment to the environment.” It is altogether fitting and proper that the dominant colour of the $20 bill is green.

The bill is also, of course, quintessentially Canadian. The 13 flowers on the bill reflect the official flower of each province as well as of the three northern territories. “The stems and leaves connecting the flowers,” so the Bank of Canada notes, “are based on those found in the Books of Remembrance housed on Parliament Hill. There is thus a subtle hint to the theme on the obverse side of the bill.

Within a circular window on the front of the bill are images of four more plants: wild strawberries, western red cedar, braided sweetgrass, and Arctic cotton. These are all plants of great cultural significance to Indigenous Peoples in Canada. An Indigenous Advisory Circle recommended that the bank include these images on the bill as symbols of “sustenance, gratitude and healing.”

When you flip the bill to look at its back panel, this is where you realize the majesty of having the bill present itself in a vertical rather than a horizontal posture. The dominant image of the bill’s obverse side is that of the Vimy Memorial, the iconic statuary, standing on the crest of Vimy Ridge, in northern France, honouring and remembering all those Canadian soldiers who died in the First World War and who have no known grave.

And seemingly flowing down from the Vimy Memorial is a cascade of red poppies and maple leaves, perhaps moving to embrace all Canadian veterans from all of our wars, past, present, and future.

This cascading effect means both that the new $20 bill is much more colourful than the old $20 it’s soon replacing, and with a greater sense of movement about it.

This sense of movement gives the bill a unique and touching beauty never seen on a Canadian banknote before; these moving elements, however, are part of this bill’s amazing security features. The Bank of Canada, after all, does need to be aware that there are forgers out there.

When you go back and look at the front of the bill, you will note that this bill is made of smooth polymer with a unique texture. It also features a purple security stripe beneath the King’s image. Within this stripe is a maple leaf, a poppy, and various other smaller maple leaves and the numbers 20. But when you tilt the bill in your hand ever so slightly, these images come to life. The Maple Leaf pulsates, the poppy begins to spin its inner petals, and some 20s magnify while other 20s shift into being maple leaves and back again to 20s when you continue moving the bill ever so slightly.

The bill is almost mesmerizing when you start to look at it closely and play with its images. There is also action on the obverse side. The maple leaves at the top of the bill pulsate with ever changing aspects of gold. You could get gold fever if you look too long at this.

Needless to say, all of these security features will be wickedly difficult to forge.

And for those of us who served on the Bank of Canada’s 7-person Thematic Advisory Group, we could never have believed that the bill which we played a small role in helping to design would be so beautiful.

Dr. David Johnson, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus of Political Science, Cape Breton University. He can be reached at david_johnson@cbu.ca He is also the author of Battle Royal: Monarchists vs. Republicans and the Crown of Canada.