A look back at every Canadian $20 bill design from the past 91 years

When the Bank of Canada unveiled a new vertical $20 banknote with King Charles on it last week, not everyone was pleased with the new look. Many Canadians called it “ugly” and “gross” since yet another British monarch graced our currency.

The $20 bill has gone through many iterations since its inaugural issue in 1935. One year prior, the Canadian government passed a law giving the Bank of Canada the exclusive right to issue Canadian banknotes.

On March 11, 1935, the Bank of Canada officially opened for business and issued its very first series of banknotes featuring members of the British royal family, including King George V, Princess Mary, and Albert, Duke of York. That’s because, although Canada was self-governing in many respects, it was still a British dominion, with the King serving as Canada’s head of state.

We thought now’s a good time to take a trip down memory lane and look at all the different designs the big ol’ $20 has sported over the years.

1935

An eight-year-old Princess Elizabeth, who would later become Queen Elizabeth II, graced one side of the first $20 bill issued by the Bank of Canada. The note had a soft pink tint, while the reverse featured a harvest allegory titled “Testing the Grain.”

The figure on the back held a thyrsus, which is a wand topped with a pinecone. According to the Bank of Canada Museum, the thyrsus symbolized prosperity, fertility, and hedonism. At the time, Elizabeth was third in line to the British throne, and her curly hair on the note could even remind Canadians of the famous child star Shirley Temple.

1937

After the first series was issued, the government made a major change to the Bank of Canada Act: all future banknotes were to be bilingual. And so, new designs came out in 1937, featuring a portrait of King George VI on almost every denomination.

Design-wise, the portraits were moved to the centre, creating a symmetrical layout that worked well with the bilingual wording. Each denomination was also given a distinct colour — for example, blue for the $5 and green for the $20. On the back of the $20, another harvest allegory appeared, this time representing fertility, a theme often associated with the colour green.

1954

After nearly 20 years, things were getting stale, so Canadian artist Charles Comfort was tasked with designing the next series of banknotes. Portraits of a young Queen Elizabeth II returned to the front of every denomination. Some people, however, claimed they could see the face of the Devil in the curls behind her ear, and the engravers had to be notified, according to the Bank of Canada Museum.

On the other side, the Bank of Canada wanted Canadian landscapes that showed little or no evidence of human activity, so the $20 featured the Laurentian Mountains, one of the oldest mountain ranges on Earth. 

1969

This is what many refer to as the “multicoloured era,” as banknotes in the new series featured much more colour. It was also the first time Canadian notes carried the words “This note is legal tender,” replacing the previous wording, “will pay to the bearer on demand.”

Several Canadian prime ministers appeared on banknotes in this series, but the $20 bill continued to feature Queen Elizabeth II. On the reverse was Moraine Lake, in Alberta’s Valley of the Ten Peaks, based on a photograph from the Canadian Pacific Railway collection.

1986

As technology advanced, so did banknote security. The 1986 series introduced a reflective security patch that changed colour when the note was tilted, while appearing as a single dark colour to scanners, making it harder to reproduce.

The $20 note featured the Doubtfire engraving of Queen Elizabeth II, also used on the $2 note, alongside a vignette of the Library of Parliament. On the reverse, a pair of common loons took centre stage. Fun fact: the Bank of Canada originally planned to feature a loon on the $1 note, but those plans were scrapped when the loonie was introduced, and so it landed on the $20 note instead.

2001

For the first time, the Bank of Canada unveiled a series of banknotes designed entirely on computers, while Canadians were given a say in choosing the themes featured on the backs of the notes.

This $20 note featured Queen Elizabeth II alongside an illustration of the entrance to the Centre Block of the Parliament Buildings. On the reverse, the theme of Arts and Culture was represented, along with a passage from the novel La Montagne Secrète by Gabrielle Roy.

2011

After Australia, Canada became the only other country to print its money on polymer, a durable but expensive material designed to deter counterfeiters. Transparent windows, microprinting and holographic features add extra layers of security.

This $20 — which most of us continue to carry in our wallets today — also introduced more colour than ever before. The $20 bill had a portrait of Queen Elizabeth II, while the reverse depicts the Canadian National Vimy Memorial at the site of the 1917 Battle of Vimy Ridge in northern France. The Canadian flag appears behind the monument, flanked by images of poppies.

Bank of Canada says the new vertical $20 banknote featuring King Charles will enter circulation in late February 2027.

A new vertical $5 banknote featuring Canadian icon Terry Fox will be released after that.