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An eerie calm descended on the streets of Winnipeg on the morning of May 15, 1919. The street cars and delivery wagons lay idle. Some 50,000 tradesmen, labourers, city and provincial employees had walked off the job, leaving the city paralyzed. It was North America’s first “general strike.

So a smattering of women have actually made it to the top of the heap, the corporate pinnacle, the apex of conventional business achievement. Canada now has women running 10 of the top 500 revenue-churning, publicly traded companies in the land. Huzzahs.

Though Queen Elizabeth II has appeared on the $20 bill since she was eight years old, identifiable Canadian women have only appeared on a Canadian banknote once. In 2004, the statue of the Famous Five from Parliament Hill and Olympic Plaza in Calgary, and the medal for the Thérèse Casgrain Volunteer Award were featured on the back of the $50 note. They were the first Canadian women to appear on our currency. However, in 2011, they were replaced by an icebreaker named for a man (see Roald Amundsen). The new bill was part of a series of notes meant to highlight technical innovation and achievement, but the change sparked controversy. Other than the image of a nameless female scientist on the $100 note issued in 2011, and two female Canadian Forces officers and a young girl on the $10 bill issued in 2001, Canadian women were absent from Canadian bills.

On 8 March 2016, International Women’s Day, the Bank of Canada launched a public consultation to choose an iconic Canadian woman who would be featured on a banknote, released in the next series of bills in 2018. More than 26,000 submissions poured in. Of those, 461 names met the qualifying criteria, and the list was pared down to a long list of 12 and finally a short list of five. The final selection will be announced on 8 December 2016.

But how did we get here?

Canada has a rich history of weaving stretching back to the precontact Indigenous peoples and enriched by each succeeding wave of immigrants.

Donovan Bailey might not seem the most likely witness on behalf of Canadian culture.

 XY Company (New North West Co), named after the marks used to distinguish its bales of goods from those of the NORTH WEST COMPANY, was a product of conflicts between NWC agents (led by Simon MCTAVISH) and NWC winterers, following the company's reorganization in 1795.