Main Page | See live article | Alphabetical index Loonie is the unofficial but commonly-used name for Canada's gold-coloured one-dollar coin. It bears an image of a common loon, Canada's national bird, on the reverse. This image replaced the planned image of a voyageur which was lost in transit to the Royal Canadian Mint at Winnipeg. The coin was introduced during the 1980s, but was unpopular until the government withdrew the one-dollar bill from circulation. Both occurred when Brian Mulroney (which rhymes with "loonie") was Prime Minister; hence the coin was in its early years sometimes called "Mulroney's loonie," but this term has largely died out. By extension, the loonie (huard in French) is a slang term for the Canadian dollar. On occasion the coin has shown other images, for instance the War Memorial to commemorate VE day, it is still however referred to as a loonie. Canada also has a two-dollar coin, usually known as the toonie. Refer to [1] to see how the Canadian dollar compares in value to other international currencies. See also Canadian currency Canadian English External Links Royal Canadian Mint Loonie (short for lunatic) is an inclusive term used by residents of the lunar colony in The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Robert Heinlein. This article is from Wikipedia. All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.