I’m thrilled to report that on November 17th we reached a significant milestone for our petition – 50K! Fantastic. This is an impressive number and I think we should be proud of our efforts. There is a lot of momentum and another eight hundred people have signed since we reached the 50,000 mark. Yesterday, two new articles appeared online on CBC News as follow-ups to my recent interviews for CBC Radio: (But please note that I’m not campaigning for specific female historic figures.) Petition to put women on Canadian banknotes draws nearly 50K signatures (CBC News/North) http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/petition-to-put-women-on-canadian-banknotes-draws-nearly-50k-signatures-1.2837932 Saskatchewan's Frances Gertrude McGill on Canadian money? (CBC News/Saskatchewan) http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/saskatchewan-s-frances-gertrude-mcgill-on-canadian-money-1.2838352 Several other articles appeared today: Petition Calls for Bank of Canada to Put Women Back on Our Money (VanCityBuzz) http://www.vancitybuzz.com/2014/11/petition-women-canadian-money/ Rendre hommage à la Sherlock Holmes de la Saskatchewan sur les billets de banque ? (Radio Canada) http://ici.radio-canada.ca/regions/saskatchewan/2014/11/18/007-frances-gertrude-mcgill-monnaie.shtml It seems that our new create a bank note site (http://womenonbanknotes.ca/) has been successful in engaging people and creating a buzz on social media, as well as attracting the attention of journalists. Lots of fun! But since the Bank of Canada and the Minister of Finance, responsible for approving the bills, have still not committed to celebrating Canadian women as well as men, we must continue the campaign. Though as many of you have pointed out on the petition and in social media, it’s ridiculous that the inclusion of Canadian women on bank notes even requires discussion and a petition in 2014! As you know, a similar bank notes campaign in the UK was successful after a petition was signed by 35K (in a country with a much greater population that ours) – and Bank of England governor Mark Carney unveiled the design for a note to feature author Jane Austen. MPs like Stella Creasy played an important role in the UK campaign, so I’ve been searching for champions among our own members of parliament. While a few have signed the petition, I believe we need MPs to stand up and speak out against our sexist bank notes. Last year I wrote letters to every federal member of parliament about this, and I followed up with some meetings, phone calls, emails and tweets – no luck in finding any champions. Please help by contacting your local member of parliament and/or party leaders, etc. Here is a link with email addresses: http://www.parl.gc.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members Thanks to everyone for your ongoing support! As Benjamin from Toronto posted on the petition page a few hours ago, “My Canada is an inclusive and egalitarian country that celebrates the accomplishments of women.”