The 1937 series was the first issued under the Bank of Canada's own name after the bank transitioned from its initial 1935 bilingual notes, which had drawn immediate political fire for treating French and English as equal languages on a national instrument — an arrangement that proved too contentious to survive a single series. The 1937 notes dropped the fully bilingual face design in favor of a compromise that satisfied neither camp but at least ended the argument temporarily.
The $1,000 denomination saw legitimate commercial and interbank use but was never a public circulation note in any practical sense. Osborne served as the Bank's first Deputy Governor; Towers as its founding Governor, appointed in 1934 at just 35 years old.
The 1937 series was the first issued under the Bank of Canada's own name after the bank transitioned from its initial 1935 bilingual notes, which had drawn immediate political fire for treating French and English as equal languages on a national instrument — an arrangement that proved too contentious to survive a single series. The 1937 notes dropped the fully bilingual face design in favor of a compromise that satisfied neither camp but at least ended the argument temporarily.
The $1,000 denomination saw legitimate commercial and interbank use but was never a public circulation note in any practical sense. Osborne served as the Bank's first Deputy Governor; Towers as its founding Governor, appointed in 1934 at just 35 years old.