2 Dollars

The 1935 series was the first issued by the Bank of Canada following its opening in March of that year — a deliberate political act to displace the commercial chartered banks that had been issuing their own currency for over a century. Ottawa was reluctant to absorb that function at first, and the enabling legislation had stalled twice before finally passing in 1934.

Two language variants were produced: unilingual English and unilingual French. Pick #41 is the English version; the French equivalent is #41a. The decision to print separate notes rather than bilingual ones was politically convenient and quietly abandoned in later decades.

Osborne signed as Deputy Governor; Towers as Governor, the first person to hold that office.