Canada's new $10 bill to be launched into circulation in Winnipeg

Canada's new $10 banknotewill be launched into circulation at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights on Monday.

The bill features civil rights activistViola Desmond the first Canadian woman to be profiled on a regularly circulating banknote on one side.

Agnes MacPhail, Canada's first female member of Parliament, was featuredona commemorative $10 bill createdfor Canada's 150th year in 2017.

The Canadian Museum for Human Rights in Winnipegison the other side of the bill.

Thefirst vertically oriented banknote in Canada, the designalso includes anartistic renderingofHalifax's north endand waterfront, where Viola Desmond lived and owned a beauty salon.

Also depicted isan eagle feather, which the Bank of Canada saysrepresentsthe ongoing journey toward recognizing rights and freedoms for Indigenous people.

On Nov. 8, 1946, Desmond took in a movieat the Roseland Theatre in New Glasgow while her car was getting fixed. When sherefused to leave the whites-only section on the main level of the theatre,Desmond, 32, was dragged out by police and jailed.

Black people were only allowed tosit in the balcony of the theatre.

Her defiance shone a light on the civil rights movement andhelped motivate the struggle against racial segregation in Canada.

Segregation was legally ended in Nova Scotia in 1954, in part because of the publicity generated by Desmond's case.

She is often described asCanada's Rosa Parks,even though Desmond's act of defiance happened nine years before Parks refused to give up her seat on an Alabama bus.

In 2010, Nova Scotia issued Desmond, who died in 1965, a posthumous apology and pardon.

Her storyis featured in a CMHR exhibit in theCanadian Journeys gallery, where Monday's launch will beheld.

Desmond's sister, Wanda Robson, who still lives in Nova Scotia, will be at Monday's event and will becomethe first person in Canada to make a purchase with the new bill at a kiosk set up by the CMHR's boutique.

Bank of Canada governor Stephen Poloz will also speak at the event.