Five Canadian women shortlisted to be featured on bank note

A poet and an athlete are among the five Canadian women shortlisted to be on the face of a bank note.

The Bank of Canada released the names of the women who were chosen from a list of 461 Canadian women who met the qualifying criteria.

The five women are Viola Desmond, E. Pauline Johnson, Elizabeth (Elsie) MacGill, Fanny (Bobbie) Rosenfeld, and Idola Saint-Jean.

Viola Desmond was a business women who worked as a beautician and, through her beauty school, was a mentor to young black women in Nova Scotia. She is best known for her courageous refusal to accept racial discrimination by sitting in a whites-only section of a New Glasgow movie theatre in 1946. Desmond was arrested and fined for “attempting to defraud the provincial government” of the 1-cent difference between the balcony seats (the “black section”) and the seats on the main floor.

E. Pauline Johnson was the daughter of a Mohawk chief and an Englishwoman. She is best known for the poetry she wrote celebrating her Aboriginal heritage. Johnson adopted her Aboriginal grandfather’s name, Tekahionwake, meaning “double wampum.” Between 1892 and 1910, she gave poetry readings all across Canada, the United States and England. Her poems and short stories made her a popular ambassador for Canada.

Elizabeth (Elsie) MacGill was the first Canadian woman to receive a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering, and a master’s degree in aeronautical engineering. She was the first woman aircraft designer in the world and is best known for her work on the Hawker Hurricane fighter planes that were used during the Second World War and were instrumental in the Battle of Britain.

Idola Saint-Jean is primarily known as a feminist and pioneer in the fight for suffrage in Quebec. She led the fight to obtain the right for Quebec women to vote in provincial elections. Saint-Jean was also the first woman from Quebec to run as a candidate in a federal election.

Fanny (Bobbie) Rosenfeld was an Olympic track and field star who won gold and silver medals in the 1928 Amsterdam Olympics. She was also joint holder of the 11-second, 100-yard world record. Rosenfeld was voted Canada’s female athlete of the first half of the 20th century in 1950, and was inducted to Canada’s Sports Hall of Fame in 1955.

The Bank of Canada will reveal which woman will be featured on the note on December 8.