Budget says some paper currency will no longer be legal tender

I only once saw a $1,000 bill when I worked in a retail store in 1986. I remember everyone on staff wanted to take a look at it. LOL.

I have a $2 bill in pretty good condition put away and I have 2 $1 bills that I got from the bank just before they were phased out. They are in near perfect condition and the serial numbers are sequential!

I keep a bunch of currency in a safe. Looks like I'll have to change my 1000's to gold and silver coins from the Mint.

Sorry Doc, but this is the first image I got in my head:

They want to refuse to accept legal currency? That undermines the legal tender. Any excuses about $1,000 bills aside, $1 and $2 bills are Canadian legal currency. You can't just sign them off saying they're no longer money!

Sorry Doc, but this is the first image I got in my head:


No worries. It's a cartoon though. Everyone knows you can't ski on gold coins.

First time I saw one my friend's Dad gave one to his Mom for Christmas. That was about 1965-1966.
Not like they're worth anything these days. I've seen the odd 10 year old pull out a $50 to pay for his slurpee.
I've even used the old trick, walk into used car dealer and liked this truck. Salesman says it's $9900, so I whipped out my wallet and counted out $1000 bills... gee sorry I only have 6 left. Guess we'll have to go elsewhere.
wait, wait, wait. Can you come up with an another $300?

Had those wheels for 5 years. Langley-Comox for $6 worth of propane back then.

Oh, I get it!
While the value of the legal "tender" falls to the ground, people want to carry ever smaller denominations to create the delusion of having pockets stuffed with cash!

This move makes perfect sense!!

Not quite as large a transaction but I have done somewhat the same when making a large purchase, pull out a wad of bills and count off what I want to pay. It's amazing how fast the price can drop when they see the ready cash right in front of them.

Gonna be hard in a few years where everything must be done on traceable plastic and we're legally allowed to carry only loonies and toonies....

In 2008 I had a bank problem. In January 2008, I made a payment to my RBC Visa credit card; the full amount of the minimum monthly payment. I noticed they always applied my payments 3 days after I paid it; payments had to be "applied" on or before the due date. A friend had a TD Visa card, he said they always applied payments 5 days after he paid it. So in January 2008, I made my payment 6 days before the due date. Just to ensure it would be applied before the due date, to prevent any trouble. Turns out the RBC Visa card holder agreement said they are allowed to apply any payment up to a maximum of 3 days after I pay it. I don't know what the TD Visa card holder agreement said, it probably said 5, but RBC Visa had pushed it to the max for every payment I made. However, this still meant I made my payment in full and on time. They proceeded with collection anyway.

They didn't just close my RBC Visa account, they put a hold on all my bank accounts. That meant no transactions permitted. At all. On anything. Chequing account, bill payments, I couldn't even make payments to my home equity line of credit. The branch manager saw this and understood. She chose to stop charging interest on my home equity line of credit, because payments were prevented due to something I didn't do. I also asked for a copy of RBC Visa statements showing the payment was made on time. RBC Visa refused. The branch manager requested statements. They refused as well.

I got a large payment from income tax. I offered to apply the entire amount to the RBC Visa balance. That wouldn't pay it off entirely, but would reduce the balance so much that they could reduce the credit limit to the minimum for that type of Visa card. Remaining balance would be below that. RBC Visa refused. I asked the branch manager to re-open my accounts. She said she couldn't because RBC Visa put a hold on them. So I asked her to open new accounts with exactly the same privileges. She agreed, but RBC Visa wouldn't permit it. In fact, RBC Visa would not allow me any sort of account at all.

I spoke with a lawyer at legal aid. Turns out banks are regulated by federal law. They are prohibited by law from denying a basic bank account. So when they denied me a basic bank account, they violated the law. They didn't care, they did it anyway.

RBC Visa tried to foreclose on my house. Despite the fact I don't have a mortgage. I paid off the mortgage in June year 2000. And when I did have a mortgage, it wasn't with RBC; it was with a different financial institution. But the lawyer hired by RBC Visa didn't care, he used so legal trick to take it anyway. The excuse was my home equity line of credit. The branch manager was the officer of RBC who had authority over accounts held at the branch, and she contacted the lawyer, ordered him to cease and desist all legal action. He refused to comply. I could go on; in the end they didn't take my house.

The point is while this was on-going, I had no bank account at all. Legal action taken by RBC was recorded on my credit report. That was treated as so extreme that I couldn't open an account anywhere else. Credit unions refused to all me to open an account. One credit union even refused to cash an EI cheque. Turns out credit unions are regulated by provincial law, they can do that. Banks are regulated by federal law, they're required to cash any cheque from the federal government, whether it's an income tax refund, GST credit, or EI benefit cheque. During this time I couldn't open any account at all.

Why did they do this? Doesn't make sense, does it? I won the nomination for the Liberal party for the federal nomination. The riding association made me president, explicitly stated so that I could prepare for my own candidacy. A week later, CRA garnisheed my wages and put a lean on my house. Despite the fact I had received a formal written assessment confirming how much of a refund they owed me. Took years to get that resolved. The Liberal finance critic had to talk to the Conservative Minister of National Revenue directly to get that resolved. Before that got resolved the RBC problem happened. The Liberal Party replaced me as the candidate a week and a half into the writ period (election campaign period) of 2008. When the new candidate learned I was the candidate he replaced and president of the riding association, he asked me to be his campaign manager. He had another campaign manager, but I was added to his team. That was a Saturday, the following Tuesday morning I was driving with the new candidate; he got a call on his cell phone. He was 69 years old at the time, had the volume of his cell phone cranked up so loud that I could clearly hear both sides of the conversation. RBC did to him exactly the same thing they did to me. He fought it for a year, but in the end had to sell controlling interest in his business. Same bank did the same thing to 2 candidates in the same riding, same year, same party, same election? No one will ever convince me that's a coincidence.

After the court cases were done (one for RBC Visa account, a second for chequing account and home equity line of credit), then I could open an account at a different bank. I had to point out to the bank employee that federal law requires them to allow me a basic bank account, and told them the full story of how RBC screwed me. They allowed me to open an account, but no credit what so ever. I'm still rebuilding credit. At first, if I deposited a cheque, all funds were put on hold for 2 weeks. If I deposited cash at a teller, funds were available immediately, but even if I deposited cash at an ATM, funds were put on hold for 2 weeks. After several months, they allowed me to make a deposit and withdraw up to $300 immediately. The rest was still held for 2 weeks. A couple years later they grudgingly increase that to $1,000. My account has been expanded so I now have a debit card, online banking, can make bill payments via online banking.

However, before I opened the account with my current bank, I had no "plastic" of any sort. I operated strictly on cash. I had to go to utility offices to pay in cash there. Without a working car, that meant taking a bicycle all over the city.

So no, banks aren't reliable. We can't eliminate cash. Doesn't matter what you want, it doesn't work.

Oh Jeez you're talking about a bank. They run by the Divine Grace of God, the law of the land does not apply.
Ran into the same shit asking how a Canadian bank could apply a percentage fee to deposit Canadian cash at a Canadian branch. No answers from them nor any MLA or MP I contacted.

Mind you, I have no love loss for banks, but I find it funny that people complain when a service company (bank) charges you when they provide a service.



...for the record, I've never actually had a bank account in my life.

They provide you a service for your $20 a month (plus innumerable other fees) but you have no problem giving them $3 to accept a $100 bill? That would've been a real winner of a policy had I tried that in my store.
That total comes to $940, from $1000... here's your $30 change.