Before we came, someone told us that the Canadian bills are now plastic. That sounded strange, but it's true--a very flexible, lightweight but durable plastic-coated bills that work very well. We have never seen one that is torn or even looks worn. There's a section with a clear strip and pictures in each bill. Each denomination is a different color with different pictures in the strip. Because it is plastic, they can emboss the denomination in Braille in the top corner. Much better for the blind. In the US, blind people have to be careful to always put certain denominations in certain pockets or fold them a certain way so they know what bill they are holding.
There are no $1 bills. Instead they have coins called Loonies because there's a picture of a loon on it. Two dollar coins are called Toonies (the two-toned coin below with the copper center). We've heard talk that they will be doing away with the $5 bill in the future and have a coin called a Doonie.
They price things with cents (plus tax always kicks in) but you don't get them as change. They just round the amount up or down. The store keeps or loses the extra cents, so we think they mostly just round them up.
(A related side note: Elder Holbrook has long said that he thinks the US should do away with pennies and nickels--round everything up and the difference goes to pay down the national debt.)
Something we've found here and in other places we've traveled--no matter what they call it, a ruble, a peso, a loonie or a dollar, the locals are all glad to take it from you!
We recently heard a thought we liked. "Sometimes when things are falling apart, they may actually be falling into place." The hard part is learning to trust that everything will be okay.
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