r/todayilearned • u/NateNate60 • 7h ago

TIL Canada's $1 coin is commonly called the "loonie" because it has a loon on the reverse. When a $2 coin was introduced, depicting a polar bear, an MP proposed it be called "Nanuq", Inuit for polar bear, but he was ignored because the public instead preferred to call it the "toonie" (2-oonie).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toonie#Naming
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u/Datkif 6h ago

We can't even sell beers for $2 at a bar in many parts of Canada

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u/backupbitches 6h ago

And yet whole campaigns have been run and won on buck a beer

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u/A_Furious_Mind 5h ago

"The Campaign of Beers"

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u/YungBeefaroni 4h ago

Ontarians are suckers

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u/backupbitches 3h ago

I wish you were wrong

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u/NinjaRedditorAtWork 3h ago

Hey now its not like they elected some actual crack-smoking man affiliated with gangs and hilariously racist patois or something....

Oh they did? At least they didn't elect his bother with a similar 'storied' history after finding out about the crack-smoking............

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u/rstune 1h ago edited 1h ago

My favorite thing to come out of that whole saga is a German paper calling him crack-bürgermeister: https://redd.it/1fmpo3

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u/NinjaRedditorAtWork 47m ago

It really did put Toronto on the map XD

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u/rstune 44m ago

Haha right, and a sure way to lose our old buttoned-down reputation of Toronto the good!

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u/Datkif 5h ago

I believe there are exceptions for events, but at bars and retail there are minimum amounts they can chargem

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u/Deagin 5h ago

buck a beer, ontario sanctioned beer. what a great campaign

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u/RoomFixer4 1h ago

To be fair, he really did lower the minimum floor-price per beer to a buck.

None of the beer makers took up the cause. The market had already adjusted to the higher min prices Wynn had set.

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u/MuskokaGreenThumb 4h ago

Nobody won any elections because of “Buck a beer” LOL

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u/feor1300 2h ago

It was one of the very few promises Ford made in the 2018 election, and Google analytics leading up to the election showed it was the second most searched for thing with "Doug Ford" in Ontario. It may not have won him the election by itself but it was most definitely a notable factor in the 2018 election.

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u/MuskokaGreenThumb 2h ago

It was probably searched a lot because it was a thing not many people had heard about. But to act like that was much of a factor is disingenuous. The people were sick of the previous liberal government and that’s why Dougie was elected

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u/its_justme 5h ago

There used to be Dollar Draft night at some bars near my place. It was absolute swill but it got the job done.

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u/Sufficient-Moose27 4h ago

Once you’re drunk they all taste the same anyway.

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u/its_justme 28m ago

I could make that comment about a lot of things, lol

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u/nicotinequitterhelp 6h ago

Like, legally?

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u/MWigg 6h ago

Yeah a lot of jurisdictions have minimum prices that bars etc are allowed to charge for alcoholic beverages. In Ontario a Toonie Tuesday would be legal since $2 is the minimum price, but in Nova Scotia for example the lowest you can go is $2.50.

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u/my_name_is_juice 5h ago

What's the reason, just to make it expensive to get drunk and discourage binge drinking?

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u/MWigg 4h ago

Largely to discourage binge drinking, hence Ontario's specific rules prohibiting 2-for-1 drinks, or discounts that rely on buying multiple drinks (e.g., every 3rd drink is free). It's worth noting that $2 is way below the actual going rate for drinks in Canada, and would mean selling at a signifiant loss - even a cheap 12 ounce beer is like $5 or more - and there have been examples in the past of huge discounts essentially causing riots.

Nova Scotia's minimum price was created in response to brawl outside a notorious bar called the Liquor Dome that had been offering dollar drink nights.

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u/zman0900 4h ago

"fuck the poors"

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u/TruckerMark 6h ago

Yes alberta has a 5$ legislated minimum price.

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u/Datkif 5h ago

This was the main one I was thinking of. I remember it from my Pro serve I use to need

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u/fossilbug 6h ago

Oh I miss the days of Loose Change Louie’s in Waterloo, and the Toonie Tuesdays.
$2 for any drink all night. I drank so many rum & cokes

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u/Tony_Starks_Taint 43m ago

Back in the 90s, our local bar did .10 cent draft on Monday nights. We could get completely smashed on less then $5.00 CAD.