Bugs Bunny should not be on Canadian money.

Photos follow.

Junk mail is a normal part of life.  Every week, my mailbox gets stuffed with brochures for credit cards I cannot afford and for retirement homes.  Honestly, retirement homes!  I’m 36!  I know I’ve always been a bit more reserved and mature for my age, but I don’t think I’m quite ready for a retirement home.  Every Wednesday or Thursday, a plastic bag full of advertisements for supermarkets, pharmacies, hardware stores, and coupons shows up too.  This week, I did a double take when I was looking at the back page of a booklet of coupons.  It was a full page advertisement for the Royal Canadian Mint, the government agency that makes all of Canada’s coins, both for regular circulation and special collection.  The page features a photo of a special, limited edition Canadian $20 coin with Bugs Bunny on it.  Right away, I’ll emphasize that I like Bugs Bunny.  I loved his cartoons when I was a kid, and actually still do, along with the rest of the cast of the Looney Tunes franchise.  The advertisement tells collectors that they can be the proud owners of this 99.99% silver coin for only $20 and all they have to do is order online or dial a toll-free telephone number.

Seems exciting and fun doesn’t it?  It is if you don’t care about how your country is being portrayed.  Why is an American cartoon character being displayed on Canadian currency, even if it is just a collector coin?  Why as the ROYAL Canadian Mint, a mandated agency of our national government, partnered with Warner Brothers, the big American film studio which owns Bugs Bunny?  The artwork on coins generally should be a national symbol.  It should honour things like wildlife, natural scenery, people who have contributed in a positive way to our national development, historical events, monuments, and athletics.  It should not feature cartoon rabbits! 

Perhaps the Bugs Bunny coin is however a good representation of Canada’s current condition?  Our government is a cartoon caricature of what a government really should be.  It’s increasingly haphazard and farcical, much like the behaviour of Bugs, Elmer Fudd, Porky Pig, Daffy Duck, Yosemite Sam and the rest of the Looney Tunes in the cartoons.  In fact, each of the characters in some way could resemble a few people in parliament! 

The point remains that cartoon characters do not belong on Canadian currency.  It would even be more tolerable if the Royal Canadian Mint had chosen to put a Canadian character on a special coin.  How about The Raccoons from the 1980’s animated series?  Rusty the Rooster and Jerome the Giraffe from the CBC-TV classic The Friendly Giant, and Casey and Finnegan from Mr. Dressup were beloved by generations of children who would happily buy a collector coin out of nostalgia alone.  Why not the late Bruno Gerussi and Robert Clothier as their respective characters Nick Adonidas and Relic from The Beachcombers?  Chez Helene or La Famille Plouffe would be great sources of character coins from French Canada.  Why is Bugs Bunny on our money?  What’s next, RCMP officers wearing Mickey Mouse ears?  Donald Duck as an Admiral in the Royal Canadian Navy?  

Click on the photo to see a larger version.