The following is an email I received from Merna Forster - Canadian historian, author and creator of the Heroines Project, please share widely. Today, Canadas new $5 and $10 polymer bills were released. As expected, the bills feature no real Canadian women from our history. This leaves me, and I hope all 23,000 of you, more motivated than ever to keep campaigning for the inclusion of Canadian women on such an important national symbol. Whats more, earlier this week, Stephen Poloz, the Governor of the Bank of Canada, sent me a personal response to my petition. He calls the petition impressive and well-reasoned, he assures us that he takes the issue seriously, and yet, his answer was still a disappointing: it would be premature ... to commit to including women as well as men on our bank notes. While he is open to the idea, he wants to wait for public consultations with Canadians. While I do not expect the Bank to alter the current series of bills, I strongly believe that a guarantee of such basic gender equality on future bills is something the Bank of Canada must promise prior to design consultations. Will you help me ramp up the campaign further, by forwarding this email to your friends and asking them to join us at change.org/CanadianHeroines? Gender equality must be an assumption around which the Banks public consultations are designed, not the other way around. We really arent asking for anything radical here. I know that when it comes to campaigning for meaningful social change, no is almost always the first answer. I sincerely appreciate Governor Polozs response. I am confident that he is reasonable, thoughtful, and sincerely thinks including Canadian women is a good idea. Thats why I believe that if we keep repeating the message that we know is right, and if we can continue to show massive support by sharing and growing the petition, we will win. Thank you, Merna Forster
Posted on: Fri, 08 Nov 2013 05:00:39 +0000