Fitting the bill

It won’t be easy to pick just one of five iconic women who have been shortlisted to be featured on a new Canadian banknote due out in 2018.

All five are as capable of inspiring girls and women today as they did when they were alive. But whoever is chosen, it will be about time that a woman, other than the Queen, graces a Canadian bill. It will, after all, be 151 years after Confederation by then.

The five exceptional women who were shortlisted from an original list of 461names selected from 26,300 submissions are:

Viola Desmond, a businesswoman turned civil libertarian who mentored young black women in Nova Scotia. She is best known for her courageous refusal in 1946 to accept racial segregation by sitting in the whitesonly section of a movie theatre.

E. Pauline Johnson (Tekahionwake), the daughter of a Mohawk chief and an Englishwoman, was renowned as a speaker and poet who celebrated her aboriginal heritage.

Elizabeth MacGill, a woman of “firsts” — the first in Canada to receive a bachelor of applied science in electrical engineering and the first female aircraft designer in the world. She headed the production and design of the Hawker Hurricane fighter planes used in the Second World War.

Fannie (Bobbie) Rosenfeld, who set track and field records in the running and standing broad jump and in the discus. She was voted Canada’s female athlete of the first half of the 20th century in 1950 and inducted into Canada’s Sports Hall of Fame in 1955.

Suffragette and activist Idola Saint-Jean, who led efforts to obtain the right for Quebec women to vote in provincial elections. She was also the first Quebec woman to run as a candidate in a federal election.

On Dec. 8 Ottawa will announce which woman will be featured on a banknote. We’re rooting for Pauline Johnson.

Born in 1861 on the Six Nations reserve near Brantford, Ont., Johnson was also known by her Mohawk name Tekahionwake, meaning “double wampum.” Between 1892 and 1910 Johnson undertook a series of speaking tours in Canada, the United States and England, reciting patriotic poems and short stories featuring Canadian culture. Until her death in Vancouver in 1913 she continued to reflect on the diversity of Canada, speaking on issues of race, gender and native culture.

Ideally, all these women should be featured on banknotes. But if it must be just one, we vote for Tekahionwake.

Tekahionwake, was renowned as a speaker and poet who celebrated her heritage