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Canadian currency (Canadian Dollar, CAD) in forex

Fact 1 - The Bank of Canada's Currency Museum has the most complete collection of Canadian bank notes, coins and tokens in the world. You can learn about the history of currency in Canada and how bank notes are designed and printed today. The impressive Yap stone, a curious piece from the island of Yap, is on display in the Garden Court, just outside the Currency Museum of the Bank of Canada. It has the shape of a flattened doughnut, is more than two meters in diameter and weighs about three tons. Stones shaped like this one, but mainly much smaller in size, were used as money up to modern times on Yap, one of the Caroline Islands in the South Pacific. This piece has even been showcased in Ripley's "Believe it or not" Museum.

Fact 2 - On The Current , May 28, there was discussion prompted by a comment last week from David Dodge, Governor of the Bank of Canada, who said that a unified currency with the U.S. is possible. In this discussion, with views for and against this development, there was no mention of what many informed Canadians see as the primary reason why Canada should keep its own distinctive currency, and should never allow currency union with the U.S.

If Canada should allow its currency to be merged with that of the U.S., it would surely lose its publicly owned Bank of Canada.

Fact 3 - The first dollars used in Canada were Spanish dollars: eight reales coins issued by Spain and its colonies. Because the colonies used the ??sd system for accounting (see Canadian pound), it was necessary to set a valuation or rating for the Spanish dollar in ??sd. Different ratings were used in the different colonies. The Halifax rating was introduced c.1750 and was the most commonly used in the northern colonies. It valued the Spanish dollar at 5 shillings (the value of the silver in the coin was equal to 4 shillings 6 pence, the "London rating").

After the American War of Independence, United Empire Loyalists, settling in Upper Canada (Ontario), brought the York rating (named after York, England]) of 1 Spanish dollar = 8 shillings. This was officially outlawed (in favour of the Halifax rating) in 1796 but continued to be used well into the 19th century.

Fact 4 - The Province of Canada declared that all accounts would be kept in dollars and cents as of January 1, 1858, and ordered the issue of the first official Canadian coins in the same year. The colonies that came together in the Canadian Confederation progressively adopted a decimal system over the next few years. When New Brunswick adopted a dollar equivalent to the Canadian dollar (see New Brunswick dollar), Nova Scotia and Newfoundland did not adopt the same dollar (see Nova Scotian dollar and Newfoundland dollar). Nova Scotia retained its own currency until 1871, but Newfoundland issued its own currency until joining Confederation in 1949.

Finally, the Federal Parliament passed the Uniform Currency Act in April 1871, tying up loose ends as to the currencies of the various provinces and replacing them with a common Canadian dollar. The gold standard was temporarily abandoned during the First World War, and definitively abolished on April 10, 1933.