A controversy over the design of Canada’s new $100 bill has now overshadowed what is otherwise a beautiful tribute to Canada’s role in medical innovation, particularly the discovery of insulin.
The $100 bill – the first of Canada’s new series of high-tech polymer notes – was issued last year on World Diabetes Day, Nov. 14.
Courtesy Bank of Canada
"Today’s date is no coincidence – Nov. 14 is World Diabetes Day and the 120th anniversary of Sir Frederick Banting’s birth," said Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney in a speech referring to the Toronto-based co-discoverer of insulin, who shared in the 1923 Nobel Prize in Medicine for the discovery
"The design of the $100 bank note celebrates Canadian innovation in medical research, including the discovery of insulin to treat diabetes. We are honored to issue this note on the site where Banting and [co-investigator Charles] Best conducted their groundbreaking research almost a century ago," Mr. Carney said at the new bank note’s debut.
"Many forget that diabetes was once a death sentence. The discovery of insulin changed that. It was at that desk – Sir Frederick Banting’s desk – where science and innovation met and the lives of hundreds of millions of people changed," he added.
Designed by a team led by the Canadian Bank Note Company’s artistic director, Jorge Peral, the reverse side of the $100 bill displays images of an insulin vial, along with a DNA strand, symbolizing Canadian researchers’ role in genome mapping, and an electrocardiogram, commemorating the invention of the pacemaker in 1950 by Dr. John Hopps at the University of Toronto’s Banting Institute.
The current controversy surrounds the most prominent of the medical innovation images on the bill, that of a female scientist peering through a microscope, meant to symbolize "Canada’s longstanding commitment to medical research," according to the Bank of Canada.
On Aug. 18, it was revealed that the woman had originally been depicted as Asian. But focus groups convened by the Bank of Canada to screen the bill had objected for a variety of reasons, so she was made to look Caucasian instead.
Two days after that revelation, Mr. Carney issued an apology.
"In the development of our $100 bank note, efforts by the bank note designers to avoid depicting a specific individual resulted in an image that appears to represent only one ethnic group. That was not the bank’s intention, and I apologize to those who were offended," he said. "We will be reviewing our design process in light of these events. Our bank notes belong to all Canadians, and the work we do at the bank is for all Canadians."
However, a bank official confirmed that there are no plans to change the note’s current design.
–Miriam E. Tucker(@MiriamETucker on Twitter)