# An Act respecting the Currency

31 Victoria, c. 45 (Canada)
An Act respecting the Currency.
[Assented to 22nd May, 1886.]
Whereas it is expedient that there should be one uniform Currency common to the whole Dominion of Canada; and whereas at the International Monetary Conference held at Paris in the year of one thousand eight hundred and sixty-seven, with a view to promote a uniform currency among the nations, a basis for such currency was agreed upon, and it is desirable that the currency of Canada should, as far as possible, be assimilated to that so agreed upon, but it is also desirable that it should be (as it now is, except in the Province of Nova Scotia,) of the same value as the metallic currency of the United States, and it is therefore expedient that no alteration should be made in the currency laws of Canada, until it is known whether the basis agreed upon at the said Conference will or will not be adopted by the United States: If Therefore, Her Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate and House of Commons of Canada, enacts as follows:
1. If the Congress of the United States of America shall adopt the basis agreed upon by the said International Monetary Conference, so that the American Half Eagle or five dollar gold coin shall be made of the same same value as the French gold coin of twenty-five francs, of the fineness of nine tenths, and weighing one hundred and twenty-four grains and nine twentieths of a grain troy weight, (or very nearly equivalent in value to the British Sovereign, and to five dollars of the present curreney of Nova Scotia,) and the other gold coins of the said United States of other denominations shall be made of proportionate value, then it shall be lawful for the Governor to issue a Proclamation reciting the fact, and appointing a day on and after which the enactments in the nine following subsections of this section shall come into force and be law, that is to say:
(1) The denominations of money in the currency of Canada, shall be pounds, shillings, pence, dollars, cents and mills;—the pound, shilling and penny shall have same proportionate value in respect to each other as in the currency of the United Kingdom;—the dollar shall be one fourth of a pound currency, the cent shall be one hundredth of a dollar, and the mill one tenth of a cent: and in any statement as to money or money value in any agreement, indictment or legal proceeding, or in any instrument, document or writing whatever, any sum may be mentioned, described and stated in pounds, shillings and pence, or in dollars, cents and mills, or in any of either of such denominations, as may be considered expedient;
(2) On and after the said day, the pound currency throughout all Canada shall be held to be equivalent to and to represent eighty-nine grains and six hundred and one thousandths of a grain troy weight of pure gold, or ninety-seven grains and seven hundred and forty-seven thousandths of a grain of gold of the standard of fineness prescribed by law for the gold coins of the United Kingdom on the first day of August, one thousand eight hundred and fifty-four;
(3) The Pound Staling or British Sovereign of the weight and fineness now established by law, sh«ll be held to be equal to five dollars and four cents and one third of a cent currency, and any British Sovereign of the present lawful weight shall pass current and be a
    (1) legal tender in Canada, for that sum; and any other British Gold coins, coined or to be coined while of lawful weight, shall pass current and be a legal tender for sums proportionate to the quantity of fine gold in them, and to be declared by Proclamation of the Governor;
(4) Any gold or silver or copper coins which Her Majesty may direct to be struck for use in Canada, shall by such names as shall be assigned to them in the Governor's Proclamation declaring them lawful money of Canada, pass current and be a legal tender in Canada, at the rate assigned to them respectively by
    (1) Proclamation, which shall be (as nearly as may be,) in the same proportion to their intrinsic values, as the rates at which the gold, silver and copper coins of the United Kingdom pass current there, bear to their intrinsic values respectively;
(5) British silver coins while of lawful weight and current in the United Kingdom, shall pass current and be a legal tender in Canada to the amount of ten dollars in any one payment at the following rates: the Crown at one dollar twenty-five cents; the Florin at fifty cents; the Shilling at twenty-five cents; and the other silver coins at rates bearing the same proportion to their nominal value in sterling;
(6) British Copper coins while current in the United Kingdom shall, unless and until it is otherwise ordered by Proclamation of the Governor, pass current and be a legal tender in Canada, to the amount of one shilling in any one payment, at the rate of two cents for every penny of their nominal sterling value;
(7) The half Eagle of the United States of America coined after the adoption by the said United States of the basis of value hereinbefore mentioned, and being of the intrinsic value aforesaid, shall, on the conditions to be defined in the Proclamation of the Governor, pass current and be a legal tender in Canada to any amount, at the rate of five dollars, as
    (1) shall also the other Gold coins of the United States and of France, or of any other nation, coined under the agreement made at the International Monetary Conference, at rates proportional to their intrinsic value and to be mentioned in
    (2) such Proclamation; which may also fix a specific percentage of difference between the new currency and the old, and may contain such conditions and limitations as to weight, fineness, stamp, date, remedy or tolerance, as the Governor may think proper;
(8) The Governor, may by Proclamation, from time to time, declare that the silver coins of the United States, coined after their adoption of the basis of value hereinbefore mentioned, and containing in the half dollar, not less than one hundred and seventy-nine grains troy weight, of the fineness of nine tenths, and so in proportion for any coin of greater or less nominal value, shall on and after a day to be therein named, pass current and be a legal tender in Canada, to the amount of ten dollars in any one payment; and any
    (1) such Proclamation may contain such conditions and limitations as to weight, fineness, stamp, date, remedy or tolerance, as the Governor may think proper, and may be revoked or amended by any subsequent Proclamation;
(9) Any sum of money payable in Canada on or after the day appointed for the establishment of the new currency in this section mentioned, to Her Majesty or to any party, under any Act or law in force in any part of Canada and passed before the said day, or under any bill, note or other instrument, contract or agreement, made before the said day in Canada and with reference thereto, or made out of Canada, but with reference thereto, on or after the said day, if from the terms used, or the date and place of making, it is to be presumed that some other currency than that hereby established was intended, shall on or after the said day be payable by a sum in the new currency hereby established, of equal value with that by which it would have been payable in any other currency if this section had not been passed, that is to say, if such sum would have been payable in the present currency of Ontario, Quebec or New Brunswick, then for every twenty-two cents and forty mills of such sum, twenty-three cents and twenty-two mills of the new currency shall be paid, or such percentage of difference in either case as the Governor may fix by Proclamation as equivalent to the difference in value of the two currencies; and if such sum would have been payable in the present currency of Nova Scotia, then for every one hundred and twenty cents of such
    (1) sum one hundred and twenty-one cents of the new currency shall be paid; but except as aforesaid, all sums of money payable in Canada after the day appointed for the coming into force of the enactments contained in this Section, shall be payable in the new currency.
2. And for the prevention of doubts be it enacted, that all sums mentioned in dollars and cents in the Imperial Act known as the British North America Act, 1867, and in all Acts of the Parliament of Canada passed in the present or in any future session, shall, unless it be otherwise expressed, be understood, as well with respect to the Province of Nova Scotia as to the other Provinces composing the Dominion of Canada, to be sums in the present currency of the Provinces of Quebec, Ontario and New Brunswick,
(1) subject only to the following exception, that is to say;—The duties, penalties and other sums of money, mentioned in the Act of the Parliament of Canada, passed in the present session, and intituled: An Act respecting the Inland Revenue, shall as regards all such duties, penalties or sums of money accrued, incurred or payable in the Province of Nova Scotia, before the first day of July, one thousand eight hundred and sixty-eight, be understood to be sums of the then currency of that Province, but as regards all such duties, penalties or sums of money accrued, incurred or payable on or after the said day, they shall be understood to be of the same amount and payable in the same currency, in Nova Scotia as in the other Provinces of Canada.
3. The Governor may, at any time after the passing of this Act, declare by Proclamation that all or any of the Silver Coins of the United States of America or of any other Foreign Nation or State, coined before the passing of this Act, shall, when of the weights and dates, to be assigned in such Proclamation, pass current and be a legal tender in the Provinces of Quebec, Ontario and New Brunswick, at rates in currency to be assigned to them respectively in such Proclamation, to such amount in any one payment as may be therein declared; and such Proclamation may be revoked or amended by any subsequent Proclamation.
4. The Stamp of the year on any coin made current under this Act, shall establish primâ facie the fact of its having been coined in that year, and the stamp of the country shall establish primâ facie the fact of its being of the coinage of such country; and all coins made current under this Act shall be deemed to be of the proper standard, weight and fineness unless objected to on that account, in which case the standard and weight must be verified.
5. The first, second, sixth and seventh sections of chapter eighty-three, of the Revised Statutes of Nova Scotia, third series, and so much of any other part of that chapter, or of any other Act or law of the said Province as may be inconsistent with this Act, shall be repealed on and after the day to be appointed by Proclamation under the first section of the Act as that on and after which these enactments in the said section shall come into force, as shall also the fifteenth chapter of the Consolidated Statutes of the late Province of Canada, the Act of the Legislature of the Province of New Brunswick, passed in the fifteenth year of Her Majesty's Reign, chapter eighty-five, the Act of the said Legislature passed in the sixteenth year of Her Majesty's Reign, chapter thirty-three, and the Act of the said Legislature passed in the twenty-third year of Her Majesty's Reign, chapter forty-eight, except sections two and three.
This work is in the public domain worldwide because it was prepared or published by or under the direction or control of the Canadian Government or any government department prior to 1974.
Section 12 of the Canadian Copyright Act provides a reservation for Crown rights or privileges. Lack of modern case law on the subject makes it unclear whether perpetual prerogative rights over these documents still apply, or whether these rights have lapsed. Notwithstanding, these documents are reproducible under the terms of the Reproduction of Federal Law Order.
Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse
This work is in the public domain worldwide because it was prepared or published by or under the direction or control of the Canadian Government or any government department prior to 1974.
Section 12 of the Canadian Copyright Act provides a reservation for Crown rights or privileges. Lack of modern case law on the subject makes it unclear whether perpetual prerogative rights over these documents still apply, or whether these rights have lapsed. Notwithstanding, these documents are reproducible under the terms of the Reproduction of Federal Law Order.
Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse