15 Dollars - Elizabeth II Building the Canadian Pacific Railway

The Canadian Pacific Railway was completed in 1885 under enormous political pressure — Prime Minister John A. Macdonald had staked his government and national unity on its construction, and British Columbia had threatened to leave Confederation without it. The project consumed an estimated 15,000 workers, many of them Chinese laborers paid roughly half the wages of their white counterparts and barred from most legal protections.

The RCM's 2015 commemorative series on CPR construction was issued during the railway's 130th anniversary year.