Canadian PM Justin Trudeau to feature woman on currency

OTTAWA, March 12 (UPI) -- Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced the nation will soon have its first Canadian woman featured on a piece of currency.

Canadian $20 bills feature a picture of Queen Elizabeth II and the Canadian $100 bill carries, in part, the image of an unnamed female scientist peering into a microscope.

But Trudeau, a Liberal feminist, said the time has come for Canada to feature one of its own female citizens as the featured image on a piece of currency.

Other Canadian bills feature former male prime ministers and their $1 coin, the 'Loony' has a picture of the bird.

The female image will be part of a new set of Canadian currency expected to be released in 2018.

Trudeau said Canadian citizens are free to nominate women for the honor with an online application. Nominees must be Canadian citizens by birth or naturalization and must have died prior to 1991.

According to CBC, some of the leading contenders are Nellie McClung, a leader in the Canadian suffrage movement, Agnes Macphail, the nation's first female member of parliament, Canadian-born actress Mary Pickford and author Lucy Maud Montgomery who wrote the Anne of Green Gables books.