23 Facts About Canadian dollar

The Canadian dollar is popular with central banks because of Canada's relative economic soundness, the Canadian government's strong sovereign position, and the stability of the country's legal and political systems.

Newfoundland went decimal in 1865, but unlike the Province of Canada, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia, it decided to adopt a unit based on the Spanish dollar rather than on the U S dollar, and there was a slight difference between these two units.

The U S dollar was created in 1792 on the basis of the average weight of a selection of worn Spanish dollars.

Canadian dollar banknotes were later issued by the chartered banks starting in the 1830s, by several pre-Confederation colonial governments, and after confederation, by the Canadian government starting in 1870.

Since 1935, all banknotes are printed by the Ottawa-based Canadian dollar Bank Note Company under contract to the Bank of Canada.

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In 2011, BA International announced it would close its banknote printing business and cease printing banknotes at the end of 2012; since then, the Canadian dollar Bank Note Company has been the sole printer of Canadian dollar banknotes.

All other current and prior Canadian dollar banknotes issued by the Bank of Canada remain as legal tender in Canada.

Legal tender of Canadian dollar coinage is governed by the Currency Act, which sets out limits of:.

Bank of Canada currently has no specific target value for the Canadian dollar and has not intervened in foreign exchange markets since 1998.

On world markets, the Canadian dollar historically tended to move in tandem with the U S dollar.

An apparently rising Canadian dollar was decreasing against other international currencies; however, during the rise of the Canadian dollar between 2002 and 2013, it gained value against the U S dollar as well as other international currencies.

In recent years, dramatic fluctuations in the value of the Canadian dollar have tended to correlate with shifts in oil prices, reflecting the Canadian dollar's status as a petrocurrency owing to Canada's significant oil exports.

Canadian dollar traded at a record high of in terms of American greenbacks on July 11, 1864, since the latter was inconvertible paper currency.

However, the Canadian dollar remained close to par or 1:1 versus the gold or silver US dollar of the time.

Between 1952 and 1960, the Canadian dollar traded at a slight premium over the U S dollar, reaching a high of on August 20, 1957.

Canadian dollar fell considerably after 1960, and this contributed to Prime Minister John Diefenbaker's defeat in the 1963 election.

The Canadian dollar returned to a fixed exchange rate regime in 1962 when its value was set at, where it remained until 1970.

Canadian dollar fell in value against its American counterpart during the technological boom of the 1990s that was centred in the United States, and was traded for as little as US$0.

On September 28, 2007, the Canadian dollar closed above the U S dollar for the first time in 30 years, at US$1.

Since the late 2000s, the Canadian dollar has been valued at levels comparable to the years before its swift rise in 2007.

The Canadian dollar has been an important part of the British, French and Dutch Caribbean states' economies and finance systems since the 1950s.

The Canadian dollar is held by many central banks in Central and South America as well.

The Canadian dollar has fully evolved into a global reserve currency only since the 1970s, when it was floated against all other world currencies.