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That is a common misconception. Anyone who has to pay for people to handle cash knows that it is not free. It depends on particulars of the business, but in general cash is somewhere between the cost of debit card and credit card fees. You can learn about it from this article [pdf warning]

Canada's new polymer bank notes would be pretty hard to counterfeit. And it's based on existing technology, used in many countries (with more soon; England, etc.)

You know, I don't know what *you* are smoking, but I don't want it.

1. Harper had a 20 BILLION PER YEAR SURPLUS
2. Harper proceeded to gut said surplus because "times were good" and you can't have surplus when "times are good" as to him that was "too much taxes"
3. Harper proceeded to cut GST by 2% (7% -> 5%, GST is VAT).
4. Harper proceeded to start to deregulate banking sector - new 30 and 40 year mortgages! Yay!
5. Harper proceeded to spend, spend, spend, increasing the size of the government by faster rate than any other politician in history. Government expenditures increased over 12%!
6. Harper found himself without a surplus, but the "timer are good"!

Then 2008 happened and economies had a little issue for a bit there.

7. Harper chose to spend his way out of any hole. 60 billion deficit. Record of all time. Only took a few years to turn record surplus to record deficit. G.W. economics!

8. Now Harper needs to balance the budget, more or less. He promised he would. So what does he do?? Nothing. He waits for low interest rates to reduce interest payments and then he will claim credit for balancing the budget.

9. Aside from that, Harper doesn't like some of those pesky science things. They are not really good for actual profit sometimes, so cut cut cut, and explain those are "deficit moderation". How about removing all those bureaucrats you've hired since 2005???

So, now much has Harper dug us into a hole?? He almost DOUBLED IT! Canada has 660 BILLION debt today. Canada had 370 BILLION debt back in 2007. If Paul Martin remained at the helm, Canada would probably have lower debt today than under Conservatives in 2007.

http://www.bankofcanada.ca//stats/goc/results/25639

http://www.bankofcanada.ca//stats/goc/results/20641

http://www.bankofcanada.ca/markets/government-securities-auctions/goc-t-bills-and-bonds-outstanding/

It took Canada a lot of austerity and pain to cut the debt and deficits brought to us by another "conservative" in the 1980s - Brian Mulroney. And now, it only took a few years of another, Steven Harper, to screw us back over. Conservatives are good at one thing - spend, spend, spend. Then cut science to dumb down the population, and spend spend spend. Maybe they need to spend another $100,000,000 on their non-stop adverts how they are doing a great job.

So please, take off your rose colored glasses and look what crap Harper caused. He was handed $20 billion a year, growing yearly, and he *wasted it* and then proceeded to waste another $300 billion - $10,000 for every Canadian!! Conservatives are in name only, just like Democratic Republic of North Korea. If you want fiscal conservatives, DO NOT *ever* vote for someone calling themselves "conservative".

You know, I don't know what *you* are smoking, but I don't want it.

1. Harper had a 20 BILLION PER YEAR SURPLUS
2. Harper proceeded to gut said surplus because "times were good" and you can't have surplus when "times are good" as to him that was "too much taxes"
3. Harper proceeded to cut GST by 2% (7% -> 5%, GST is VAT).
4. Harper proceeded to start to deregulate banking sector - new 30 and 40 year mortgages! Yay!
5. Harper proceeded to spend, spend, spend, increasing the size of the government by faster rate than any other politician in history. Government expenditures increased over 12%!
6. Harper found himself without a surplus, but the "timer are good"!

Then 2008 happened and economies had a little issue for a bit there.

7. Harper chose to spend his way out of any hole. 60 billion deficit. Record of all time. Only took a few years to turn record surplus to record deficit. G.W. economics!

8. Now Harper needs to balance the budget, more or less. He promised he would. So what does he do?? Nothing. He waits for low interest rates to reduce interest payments and then he will claim credit for balancing the budget.

9. Aside from that, Harper doesn't like some of those pesky science things. They are not really good for actual profit sometimes, so cut cut cut, and explain those are "deficit moderation". How about removing all those bureaucrats you've hired since 2005???

So, now much has Harper dug us into a hole?? He almost DOUBLED IT! Canada has 660 BILLION debt today. Canada had 370 BILLION debt back in 2007. If Paul Martin remained at the helm, Canada would probably have lower debt today than under Conservatives in 2007.

http://www.bankofcanada.ca//stats/goc/results/25639

http://www.bankofcanada.ca//stats/goc/results/20641

http://www.bankofcanada.ca/markets/government-securities-auctions/goc-t-bills-and-bonds-outstanding/

It took Canada a lot of austerity and pain to cut the debt and deficits brought to us by another "conservative" in the 1980s - Brian Mulroney. And now, it only took a few years of another, Steven Harper, to screw us back over. Conservatives are good at one thing - spend, spend, spend. Then cut science to dumb down the population, and spend spend spend. Maybe they need to spend another $100,000,000 on their non-stop adverts how they are doing a great job.

So please, take off your rose colored glasses and look what crap Harper caused. He was handed $20 billion a year, growing yearly, and he *wasted it* and then proceeded to waste another $300 billion - $10,000 for every Canadian!! Conservatives are in name only, just like Democratic Republic of North Korea. If you want fiscal conservatives, DO NOT *ever* vote for someone calling themselves "conservative".

You know, I don't know what *you* are smoking, but I don't want it.

1. Harper had a 20 BILLION PER YEAR SURPLUS
2. Harper proceeded to gut said surplus because "times were good" and you can't have surplus when "times are good" as to him that was "too much taxes"
3. Harper proceeded to cut GST by 2% (7% -> 5%, GST is VAT).
4. Harper proceeded to start to deregulate banking sector - new 30 and 40 year mortgages! Yay!
5. Harper proceeded to spend, spend, spend, increasing the size of the government by faster rate than any other politician in history. Government expenditures increased over 12%!
6. Harper found himself without a surplus, but the "timer are good"!

Then 2008 happened and economies had a little issue for a bit there.

7. Harper chose to spend his way out of any hole. 60 billion deficit. Record of all time. Only took a few years to turn record surplus to record deficit. G.W. economics!

8. Now Harper needs to balance the budget, more or less. He promised he would. So what does he do?? Nothing. He waits for low interest rates to reduce interest payments and then he will claim credit for balancing the budget.

9. Aside from that, Harper doesn't like some of those pesky science things. They are not really good for actual profit sometimes, so cut cut cut, and explain those are "deficit moderation". How about removing all those bureaucrats you've hired since 2005???

So, now much has Harper dug us into a hole?? He almost DOUBLED IT! Canada has 660 BILLION debt today. Canada had 370 BILLION debt back in 2007. If Paul Martin remained at the helm, Canada would probably have lower debt today than under Conservatives in 2007.

http://www.bankofcanada.ca//stats/goc/results/25639

http://www.bankofcanada.ca//stats/goc/results/20641

http://www.bankofcanada.ca/markets/government-securities-auctions/goc-t-bills-and-bonds-outstanding/

It took Canada a lot of austerity and pain to cut the debt and deficits brought to us by another "conservative" in the 1980s - Brian Mulroney. And now, it only took a few years of another, Steven Harper, to screw us back over. Conservatives are good at one thing - spend, spend, spend. Then cut science to dumb down the population, and spend spend spend. Maybe they need to spend another $100,000,000 on their non-stop adverts how they are doing a great job.

So please, take off your rose colored glasses and look what crap Harper caused. He was handed $20 billion a year, growing yearly, and he *wasted it* and then proceeded to waste another $300 billion - $10,000 for every Canadian!! Conservatives are in name only, just like Democratic Republic of North Korea. If you want fiscal conservatives, DO NOT *ever* vote for someone calling themselves "conservative".

FYI http://www.bankofcanada.ca/banknotes/

Although I have to say, the 10kg coin is cooler: http://www.mint.ca/store/mint/learn/10-kilo-coin-6500002

Nope. It's gone for good. They stopped printing them in 2000 and any financial institution that receives one is asked to return it to the BoC for destruction. They're still legal tender and can still be held privately, but they're not officially in circulation. They were rarely used for anything other than money laundering anyways. The only time I ever saw them was in a bank vault in bundles.

Canada already has Polymer $100.00 bills with $50.00 bills coming in March and $20.00, $10.00 and $5.00 bills in 2013. Have a look here > http://www.bankofcanada.ca/banknotes/

No, these are actually imaginary Canadian dollars, which are worth much, much less than real American dollars.

As of this writing, an American dollar will purchase 1.02 Canadian dollars. I admit that I was surprised. I stopped following it for a while, but I had thought the Canadian was worth more. What did Canada do to screw up their economy?

You have it backwards: the CAD per USD ratio hasn't gone much above 1.07 CAD per USD in the last 10 years, and used to swim in 0.75 territory for the longest time. Hence the well-known phenomenon of books and magazines with two list prices, a US price plus a Canadian price that's a good nudge higher. That suddenly became obsolete when the CAD achieved rough parity around 2007 or so, in part because of the USD inflating a bit faster than the CAD.

No, these are actually imaginary Canadian dollars, which are worth much, much less than real American dollars.

As of this writing, an American dollar will purchase 1.02 Canadian dollars. I admit that I was surprised. I stopped following it for a while, but I had thought the Canadian was worth more. What did Canada do to screw up their economy?

Actually, according to the article at http://www.bankofcanada.ca/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/spencer.pdf (linked from TFA) under "Related Information" Canada will be the first country to embed a stripe of holographic foil in a transparent area.

They also have a transparent area that shows the denomination when held in front of a point light source, but they don't clearly specify if that's a Canada-unique feature.

From the same article, Canada is buying the substrate (with said security features) from Note Printing Australia, and printing the notes themselves in Ottawa. So I doubt these features will remain uniquely Canadian, but will show up in future currency designs using this substrate too.

If your dryer gets over 130C, you've got bigger problems than melted money.

Canada’s new notes are being printed on Guardian®, a biaxial-oriented polypropylene substrate manufactured by Securency International of Australia.

refs: banknote design
Polypropylene properties

Dumped... quite literally! According to the Bank of Canada, worn out banknotes are put into landfill: "At the time of the study, the Bank of Canada had not chosen a specific end-of-life scenario for polymer bank notes. So, for the sake of modeling, the end-of-life treatment currently in use (landfill) for our cotton-based paper notes was assumed."

I don't suppose anyone happens to know where? :)

Assuming the median value of $750K/box, and that you need to save 5% of that per year to pay off a 5% mortgage, ($187k/yr, $140k/9-months) yes, they're screwed.

Very large corporate purchases that can get the business prime rate of 2.25% (Bank of Canada, today: http://www.bankofcanada.ca/en/rates/digest.html ) would only need save $67,500 per year to make interest, leaving this project with another $60K/year to pay down principal...probably a 25-year payback.

IF the bloom box lasts 25 years and has little in the way of maintenance or replacements the whole time. In short, yes, they have to drop the capital outlay to make this work. But not by much! They are nearly there now, and it's early days.

Also, you're forgetting the money-cost of carbon. Which is right, there isn't one. Nobody will impose one until there are alternatives that allow such costs to not send civilization to a grinding halt.

The Bloom Box is advertised as 60% efficient at turning methane energy into electrical energy. The best most heat engines can do is about 35% - and that's for huge, billion-dollar coal plants.

By going to gas-fired generation, our costs all nearly double compared to coal, but our carbon output drops by a good half. The Bloom Box could let it drop by three-quarters. Moreover, it effectively doubles the gas supply by using half as much to get the same electricity.

"Half" is good, but not good enough to level off carbon in the atmosphere. Three-quarters, now you're talking.

All that said, I don't imagine multi-billion-dollar, gigawatt Bloom Box power plants in our future. If they can indeed make the costs really drop, then I can see any kind of rural area, hard to put on the grid, going to these for distributed power generation.

And the developing world, where the grid hasn't reached half of humanity yet - well, it could be just huge. There's insane amounts of gas in Russia, an overland pipeline away from China and India, and nearly as vast amounts in the Arabian Gulf, not so far from Africa and less-developed parts of the middle east.

If these places can develop a low-carbon power solution, especially if China could quit opening a sulfurous brown-coal plant EVERY WEEK, it could be a big chunk of the solution.

Actually corporations like Microsoft do this all the time. By hanging onto small amounts of cash from their customers they can place this into overnight funds on the money market or other investments. You'd be surprised how much cash you could make if you had $20,000,000 on the overnight money market. It's quite legal, so there is no problem with that.

http://www.bankofcanada.ca/en/rates/monmrt.html

The Current USD/Canada exchange is: 0.8672 http://www.bankofcanada.ca/en/rates/exchange.html, so $199 is $229 ... eh?

Dear Mr. Troll

According to The bank of Canada today: http://www.bankofcanada.ca/en/rates/exchange.html

1 CAD (noon) = 0.9956 0.9956 USD

In short, virtually par. You may not be good at making paper airplanes with our money, but you should also brush up your skills at using Google to find bank rates. Maybe read a newspaper from time to time to keep up with current events, d00d.

- A guy from "Canadia"

the Royal Canadian Mint (the federal agency that prints Canadian paper currency and stamps Canadian coins)

The rising demand for corn as a source of ethanol-blended fuel is largely to blame for increasing food costs around the world

Statistics Canada says consumers in the country paid 3.8 per cent more for food in April 2007, compared to the same month last year.

Ah.. the dots do indicate denomination, they're just not Braille.

The big problem with USA notes is that not only are they the same size, but they are the same colour. There have already been studies showing the interpretation of text on a bank note is actually done after colour or size. This is why many countries use both size and distinct colour (blue vs green, as opposed to green vs some other shade of green) as clues to their different values. Examples: The EU bank notes does both, the UK bank notes are different colour, as are the Canadian bank notes are also of different colour. Add to all this the Australian bank notes, which are not only different colours, but are made out of plastic!!!

The cashiers look at people in a funny way when you pay for $60 or $100 of stuff with $20's.

They look at you funny for handing them three to five bills? Where are you shopping? I guess I'm thinking mostly of grocery stores, but I don't remember ever getting a look for handing over a hundred bucks in cash.

This is even with the new Canadian $20 bills with the 'extra' security features.

Our pretty, red fifty dollar bills were widely shunned by merchants year or two ago, after a counterfeiting flap. I think the new fifties have assuaged their fears, because the little hand-lettered notices have disappeared from the checkout lanes. Twenties, though, were never in doubt in my experience.

The cashiers look at people in a funny way when you pay for $60 or $100 of stuff with $20's.

They look at you funny for handing them three to five bills? Where are you shopping? I guess I'm thinking mostly of grocery stores, but I don't remember ever getting a look for handing over a hundred bucks in cash.

This is even with the new Canadian $20 bills with the 'extra' security features.

Our pretty, red fifty dollar bills were widely shunned by merchants year or two ago, after a counterfeiting flap. I think the new fifties have assuaged their fears, because the little hand-lettered notices have disappeared from the checkout lanes. Twenties, though, were never in doubt in my experience.

The cashiers look at people in a funny way when you pay for $60 or $100 of stuff with $20's.

They look at you funny for handing them three to five bills? Where are you shopping? I guess I'm thinking mostly of grocery stores, but I don't remember ever getting a look for handing over a hundred bucks in cash.

This is even with the new Canadian $20 bills with the 'extra' security features.

Our pretty, red fifty dollar bills were widely shunned by merchants year or two ago, after a counterfeiting flap. I think the new fifties have assuaged their fears, because the little hand-lettered notices have disappeared from the checkout lanes. Twenties, though, were never in doubt in my experience.

They do wear off after a while, if the bills have travelled a lot. Don't know how a blind person could tell the difference between the bills. Also its only the new bills that have braille, so if they get an old $20 then they're stuck.
See here for more info. (It's not quire braille, just a raised symbol) http://www.bankofcanada.ca/en/banknotes/accessibil ity.html

Thats funny as hell! BTW, have you opened a newspaper in the last couple of months? Notice the US dollar falling into the shitter? Here are your conversions as of today.

125,000 CAD = 104,825 US
125,000 CAD = 56,512.50 GBP
125,000 CAD = 80,837.50 EURO

Here http://www.bankofcanada.ca/fx/iexe0102.gif is a link to the bank of canada, showing a graph of the CAD vs USD. To summarize it for you,

Aug 13 04 1.33CAD == 1 USD
Nov 12 04 1.19CAD == 1 USD

I would guess that looking at the US economy, fiscal policy, and budget, the US dollar is in a world of trouble (would that be a "New World Order" of trouble?).

thats my 0.02

Ah, the guy in that story was counterfeiting the Canadian $20, which apparently does have a holographic stripe in its latest version. However, the story doesn't mention holograms; it says he removed "the optical security devices from real $20 bills."

Ah, the guy in that story was counterfeiting the Canadian $20, which apparently does have a holographic stripe in its latest version. However, the story doesn't mention holograms; it says he removed "the optical security devices from real $20 bills."

Here are the new Canadian 20$ bills.
the site has some info on the new security features on this bill- there are also new 100$ bills, the only thing missing is new $50 bills.

The Bank of Canada has pulled these bills at the request of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, so you are correct, in that they're unavailable in a general sense. I have two of these bills on two seperate occasions (a motorcycle purchase, and a bond payout).

http://www.bankofcanada.ca/en/banknotes/general/ch aracter/1986_1000.htm/

Then here you go!

http://www.bankofcanada.ca/en/banknotes/general/ch aracter/2001-05_100.htm/

The new $20 bills will be introduced into the market September 29, 2004.

More info on current and past series here

AC

Bank of Canada

That would be the Royal Bank of Canada. The Bank of Canada is a totally separate entity and is in fact run by the government to manage the money supply and interest rates.

>Its still stealing.

If counterfeiting money is stealing, then why does every country have a special law against it? For fun? For the hell of it? Because it feels good to pass more laws? It's not as if laws against stealing are any less lenient than laws against counterfeiting.

The fact is those special counterfeiting laws exist simply because the government could not prosecute an individual for stealing if they were to reproduce bank notes without such laws. They could only prosecute under copyright law, if they were lucky, which clearly would be pointless, as the offender would again just print out the amount of money they are fined.

For reference, you may wish to look at the Bank of Canada's notes on this. They definately wouldn't waste their breath saying this if reproducing bank notes were stealing:

Even in those cases where the reproduction of the bank note image is not an offence under the Criminal Code or the Copyright Act, the Bank is still entitled to enforce its copyright through civil action. Reproducing a bank note image without the Bank's permission may lead to civil action by the Bank for recovery of the infringing copies, as well as injunctions and the awarding of damages.

>You are using a service that you aren't paying for.

That's the point! Not paying for a service and stealing are not equal. If it were, why would an officer give you a $10 parking ticket, rather than claiming you stole parking service from the city, which would net them a lot more, and would certainly stop people from parking illegally (who wants a criminal record for _stealing_?) I'll tell you why. Because he wouldn't win.

Neither would anyone suing you for stealing their work when you only pirated it.

The relevant Canadian legislation can be found at http://www.bankofcanada.ca/en/banknotes/legislatio n/457code/

I find it quite amusing that this page about the legality of duplicating images of Canadian currency contains, in the upper right-hand corner... a partial image of Canadian currency.

I was glad to see that the Rules for Use site links to many different countries. However, I wonder in these sorts of cases, how many companies program their software to take into account the appropriate national law (and how are they going to know which one to apply, by reading some user-configurated environment setting?)

I suspect "make the software comply with US law (or US industry requests)" is the default position, which ends up forcing this on anyone in any country who uses the software.

Fortune called the US $20 bill a product of the year. I think this is kinda silly, especially considering in Canada we've had unique money for several years now. Our money is more advanced, including a no-two-bills-the-same idea (which can be seen when held under UV light). Our $10 and $5 bills are like this. Sure, it may be an american magazine, but i still think that the note is not very special.

The above quote comes from the Bank of Canada's website has a FAQ on the use of currency and what you use and how you use banknotes to pay debt.

Does the vendor/retailer have to accept banknotes or coins. Not really, and I suspect that the law is probably the same in the US since the majority of this law is common or case law. An exception is The Currency Act which sets out limits on a tender of payment in coin. The specific limits can be seen at the above site."

The above quote comes from the Bank of Canada's website has a FAQ on the use of currency and what you use and how you use banknotes to pay debt.

Does the vendor/retailer have to accept banknotes or coins. Not really, and I suspect that the law is probably the same in the US since the majority of this law is common or case law. An exception is The Currency Act which sets out limits on a tender of payment in coin. The specific limits can be seen at the above site."

The Royal Bank of Canada, is not actually the same thing as the Bank of Canada. The name is somewhat deceptive, but it's just a bank, like Bank of America is just a bank. Non governmental is the key here...

New CD's for $14.00 Canadian, Woohoo -I'm getting in my car right now and drive there ya hey.

It seems the Recording Industry likes Canadians better, they're only charge you twice what they're music is worth.

$14.00 Canadian is $10.18 US dollars 5/27/2003 @ 12:00 Noon Bank of Canada

All things fair, the music is worth whatever they can sell it for.... pity is they'd sell sooooo much more if it were cheaper, they'd make even more money in the long run. Too bad they'll never try it.

You mean like this one? (It has a belt loop, rather than a wrist strap. From its size, I'd say it weighs in at under a pound.) The Bank of Canada has designed and circulated new currency specifically considering the visually impaired. The CNIB (Canadian National Institute for the Blind) lends readers to the blind free of charge.

This is an excellent point and one that i was wondering about. Unlike other countries who routinely decommission monetary instruments (with a brief trade-in period), the United States refuses to do so. Why?...

Here in Canada all Bank of Canada notes are legal tender, and will remain so.

You are not likely to see a George V or George VI dollar bill in circulation, but you can still spend it. However, when the banks send them back to the Mint, they will be destroyed. The Bank of Canada have a nice web site with lots of pretty pictures. All the notes they show are legal tender.

We are rolling out a new series of banknotes now, with two versions of both the $5 and $10 bill in circulation. They incorporate all the usual security goodies: weird colours, large portraits, watermarks, embedded doodads, complicated fine-line backgrounds, and so on.

...laura

One of the things that surprised me with the latest version of our Canadian bills was that braille is used! (Bank of Canada - currency - accessibility features)

I do wonder how well the braille stands up to the wear-and-tear such bills would go through during the normal lifetime of paper currency ...

YS.

How does changing the color hurt counterfeiters?

The colours on money are chosen to try to scramble colour scanners and photocopiers. The intent is that if you get one colour on the bill right, you'll mess up another. This is why you see certain colours over and over, like the funny purple and turquoise that appear on so many notes. The new Canadian $5 note, for example, is a distinctive blue, but also has "funny purple" highlights.

Brightly coloured notes sometimes have unexpected effects, like noting in an Australian TV show that a small-time armed robber had netted $50 (two reddish-orange, one blue).

...laura

$650US ~= $414.33CN Anyone who spent $414.33 for a GF3 card is a jackass, and so are you.

link