So, you’re looking at a handful of shiny, gold-colored coins and wondering what on earth a Canadian dollar is called. Honestly, if you just call it "a dollar," nobody is going to look at you weird. But if you want to sound like a local—or if you’re just confused why everyone in Toronto or Vancouver is talking about "loonies" while they buy their morning double-double—there’s a bit of a story there.
The official name is the Canadian dollar. That’s the boring, government-sanctioned version you’ll see on bank statements and currency exchange boards at the airport. In the world of international finance, it goes by the code CAD. You might also see it written as C$ to make sure nobody confuses it with the US dollar, because, let’s be real, the exchange rate is almost never 1:1.
But if you’re standing in a checkout line, the Canadian dollar called the loonie is what you're going to hear 99% of the time. It’s not just a cute nickname; it’s basically the national identity at this point.
Why is a Canadian Dollar Called a Loonie?
It actually started as a bit of a mistake. Or a heist, depending on how dramatic you want to be.
Back in 1987, the Royal Canadian Mint was getting ready to replace the green one-dollar paper bill with a coin. The original plan was to feature the "Voyageur" design—basically two guys in a canoe, which had been on silver dollars for decades. But while the master dies (the metal stamps used to make the coins) were being shipped from Ottawa to the minting facility in Winnipeg, they vanished.
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Just gone.
The government freaked out. If someone had those dies, they could start minting their own "official" currency. To prevent massive counterfeiting, they scrapped the canoe design entirely and scrambled for something new. They landed on a design by artist Robert-Ralph Carmichael: a common loon floating on water.
The coin launched on June 30, 1987. Within weeks, people stopped calling it a dollar and started calling it a loonie. The name stuck so hard that the Mint eventually trademarked it.
The Toonie: The Natural Successor
You can’t talk about the loonie without mentioning its younger, bigger brother. In 1996, Canada replaced the two-dollar bill with a bi-metallic coin (silver in the middle, gold on the outside).
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Because the $1 coin was a loonie, the $2 coin naturally became the toonie. It’s a portmanteau of "two" and "loonie." Some people tried to make "moonie" happen because it features a polar bear (and the joke was the Queen had a "bear behind"), but "toonie" won the culture war.
More Than Just Birds: Other Names for Canadian Money
If you’re hanging out in Quebec, things change a bit. French-speaking Canadians have their own set of slang. You might hear the dollar referred to as a piastre (pronounced like "pee-ass"). This is a throwback to the old Spanish colonial days. You’ll also hear huard, which is literally just the French word for "loon."
Then there's the universal stuff. Like Americans, Canadians use the term bucks.
"That'll be five bucks, eh?"
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It’s standard. But interestingly, there’s a Canadian-specific theory for "buck" too. Some historians point back to the Hudson's Bay Company, where a "buck" referred to the skin of a male beaver, which was used as a unit of trade before paper money was a thing.
What happened to the penny?
You won’t find a "penny" called a penny in your change anymore because Canada killed it off in 2013. It cost more to make than it was worth. Now, if you pay cash, businesses round to the nearest five cents.
- Nickel: 5 cents (features a beaver).
- Dime: 10 cents (features the Bluenose schooner).
- Quarter: 25 cents (features a caribou).
- 50-cent piece: These exist, but they're like unicorns. You almost never see them in the wild.
The "Petrocurrency" and the Global Stage
In business circles, the Canadian dollar is often called a petrocurrency. This is because Canada is a massive oil exporter. When the price of crude oil goes up, the value of the CAD usually follows suit.
Traders on Wall Street and in London love the loonie because it’s a "commodity currency." It’s seen as a safe bet, but one that’s tied to the health of the global energy market. It’s currently the seventh most traded currency in the world, which is pretty impressive for a country with a population smaller than California.
Actionable Tips for Using Canadian Currency
If you're heading North or just dealing with CAD for the first time, keep these things in mind:
- Don't try to use US coins. While many border towns will take US bills (usually at a terrible exchange rate), the vending machines and parking meters only want loonies and toonies.
- Feel the bills. Canadian banknotes are made of polymer (plastic), not paper. They have transparent windows and holographic features. They also don't tear easily and can survive a trip through the washing machine.
- Check the colors. Unlike the sea of green in the US, Canadian money is color-coded. $5 is blue, $10 is purple, $20 is green, $50 is red, and $100 is brown. It makes it much harder to accidentally hand over a hundred when you meant to give a five.
- Embrace the rounding. If your total is $1.02, you pay $1.00. If it's $1.03, you pay $1.05. This only applies to cash; digital transactions are still exact to the cent.
- Watch for King Charles. For years, every coin featured Queen Elizabeth II. Following her passing, the Mint began transitioning to the effigy of King Charles III. You'll see both in circulation for a long time.
Whether you call it the Canadian dollar, a loonie, or just CAD, you're dealing with one of the most stable and recognizable currencies on the planet. Just remember to keep some heavy coins in your pocket—those loonies and toonies add up way faster than you think.