King Charles III to grace new $20 bill as Terry Fox $5 waits in limbo

The Bank of Canada has officially unveiled a redesigned vertical $20 bank note featuring King Charles III, marking the first time the King of Canada's portrait will appear on Canadian currency and the first new royal face on the $20 note in more than seven decades.

The front of the note shows Charles surrounded by a floral and leafy tapestry meant to reflect his long-standing interest in the environment. Provincial and territorial floral emblems ring the design, while a transparent circular window incorporates plants of cultural significance to Indigenous Peoples, developed with input from the Bank's Indigenous Advisory Circle. The reverse keeps the Canadian National Vimy Memorial, a familiar image from the previous $20.

Governor Tiff Macklem stood alongside Governor General Louise Arbour and Secretary of State Wayne Long for the formal reveal Wednesday. Macklem called the design “striking, symbolic and secure,” highlighting a purple security stripe with elements that spin, transform and pulse when the note is tilted.

Officials say these new features will make the $20 harder to counterfeit at a time when it remains the country's most commonly used denomination, yet the announcement lands awkwardly for many Canadians.

Charles becomes the face of the bill most people handle day after day, even as public attachment to the monarchy continues to erode. Polls over recent years have repeatedly shown a majority of Canadians, particularly younger ones, feel little personal connection to the institution or to the formal language of “His Majesty.” For many, placing him on the most widely circulated dollar-note in the country feels like an expensive gesture toward a figure who no longer resonates with large parts of the country.

The Bank of Canada has not released a precise cost for the $20, but past transitions have run into the tens of millions when factoring in design, security research, public education campaigns, and the upgrades required for bank-note handling machines across the country.

That money is being spent to put a distant constitutional figure on the currency while other priorities wait.

Among those priorities is the long-promised $5 note featuring Terry Fox

The vertical series began in 2018 when the Trudeau government replaced the old $10 featuring Sir John A. Macdonald, the first prime minister of Canada with a new note honouring civil rights activist Viola Desmond. The $5 was widely expected to follow with Fox, whose Marathon of Hope remains one of the most unifying stories in modern Canadian history. Instead, the Charles $20 has jumped the queue.

Bank of Canada officials have not explained this sequence of events, leaving the impression that monarchical continuity took precedence over a national hero whose image would have required no constitutional justification at all and would have commanded broader emotional buy-in by default.

Fox's story is taught in schools, marked by annual runs across the country, and still draws emotional responses decades after his death. Charles, by contrast, inherits a role that many Canadians view as ceremonial at best and anachronistic at worst. Putting the King of Canada on the $20 while Terry Fox remains delayed strikes as a missed opportunity to put a face on our money that actually feels Canadian.

Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne struck a different note Wednesday, saying the design “honours our constitutional traditions” and recognizes service and sacrifice through the Vimy Memorial. Secretary of State Long called it “a distinctly Canadian story.” The Bank says they consulted accessibility groups, veterans' organizations linked to Vimy, and other stakeholders.

It will now begin the familiar process of educating retailers, banks, and the public before the note enters circulation in late February 2027.