Canada Proudly Prints Wrong Maple Leaf on Its Currency Because Canada Can&#39;t Do Anything Right

Oh, my God, Canada. I'm trying not to raise my voice right now because I know you're doing your best, but, can't you ever correctly complete one simple task?

First you lost all the syrup. Now you put a Norway maple leaf on your bills.

It kills us to see you flail like this.



Then, in 2011, Canada decided to redesign their banknotes.

"Paper is out and polymer is IN!" Canada exclaimed in an email newsletter that the rest of the world deleted without reading.


They featured a big ol' maple leaf.

But not a Canadian maple leaf.

A Norwegian one.

"Big deal," you say. "Leaves are leaves; who cares?"

The problem is that maple leaves are Canada's thing. Like how some nations' thing is communism, or being the world economic leader, or producing generation after generation of beautiful supermodels. Canada's thing is that there are leaves there.

And they fucked it up.

Canadian sugar maple leaves, explains the Canadian Globe and Mail, have three "lobes" and tips that aren't "stringy." Norway maple leaves have five lobes and tips that are stringy.

The leaf on the new Canadian bills has five lobes and stringy tips, because it is a Norway maple leaf.

The Bank of Canada insisted to the Globe and Mail that it is not a Norway maple leaf, but rather a "stylized" Canadian maple leaf (that has been stylized to exactly resemble a Norway maple leaf).

"We created an image for the bank note that represents a stylized Canadian maple leaf, if you will, so that it wouldn't represent any specific species, specifically not the Norway maple," said spokeswoman Julie Girard.

To clarify: the only species specifically represented by the Norway maple leaf design on Canada's money is the not-a-Norway-maple-leaf species.

The worst part of the leafiasco is that now Canadians are getting down on themselves about it. Finally realizing that they can't do anything right. Falling into a deep depression.

Said University of Ottawa botany professor Julian Starr:

"It's rather sad. It's not the first time that it's happened. It's almost Canadian in the fact that we can't even get our symbols right."

Just because it's true doesn't make it any less sad.

Oh, Canada. :(

[Globe and Mail via Washington Post/TIME // Image via Getty]