New polymer $20 bank notes featuring Vimy Memorial now in circulation

OTTAWA – Canada’s new polymer $20 bills are on their way to a pocket near you.

Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty and Veterans Affairs Minister Steven Blaney marked the launch of the new bill – which features the Vimy Memorial – today at an event at the Canadian War Museum.

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The plastic $20s follow earlier launches of similar $50 and $100 bills.

Once they’re fully circulated, there will be about 800 million of the $20 bills in circulation – as many as all other denominations put together.

Some focus groups reportedly mistook the twin spires of the Vimy Memorial in France for New York’s World Trade Center, destroyed in the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Others described the “naked characters” depicted in the memorial’s sculptures as “too pornographic.”