MONTREAL — Last fall, with local businesses struggling under the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, Quebec’s Charlevoix region began experimenting with a Depression-era idea to boost its local economy: issuing its own currency, “la Chouenne.” Residents were invited to trade dollars for digital credits or physical notes, which they could use at businesses in the area that participated in the program.

Some of the notes have since made their way to Ottawa. The Bank of Canada Museum has added them to its new pandemic collection, which seeks to memorialize the ways the Canadian economy adapted to a changed world.

“For us, at the end of the day, it really is about that human side of the story,” said Krista Broeckx, an assistant curator at the museum. “The economy for a lot of people is a very intangible or impersonal thing, so it’s really important for us to put those human stories, put people, at the front and centre of the work that we’re doing.”

The effort is still in its early stages. A subset of the national-currency collection, which includes coins and bank notes from earlier epochs in Canada’s history, the pandemic collection so far consists of just a handful of objects. The Bank of Canada Museum began collecting artifacts in the 1950s and now has more than 110,000 objects in its collection.

Still, the new pandemic-related holdings provide the first glimpse at how the central bank will document its impact for future generations.

Among the museum’s acquisitions are money-themed face masks created by Montreal entrepreneurs who pivoted their business in the early days of the pandemic. It has also acquired pandemic stimulus vouchers issued by the Taiwanese government and a Pfizer stock certificate from 1951, reflecting the pharmaceutical company’s role in producing the first COVID-19 vaccine approved for use in Canada.

“We are pleased to be included,” Pfizer spokesperson Christina Antoniou said, “and proud of our efforts in delivering the world’s first mRNA vaccine against COVID-19, and most recently, an oral therapeutic to treat COVID-19 to help bring an end to this devastating pandemic.”

As the collection grows, the museum would like to include more artifacts related to the effects of lockdowns and the changes that businesses made to their operations in light of public health measures, Broeckx said. It is also looking to address the downstream economic effects of the pandemic, like supply-chain issues and inflation, she added. 

Central banks around the world played a starring role in the pandemic response, lowering interest rates to near zero in an effort to avoid a prolonged recession. At the same time, the public health impacts of the virus and extraordinary government interventions contributed to disruptions in global commerce, such as lengthy shipping delays, higher costs of living and a movement toward remote work and other online services.

In Charlevoix, as in other places around the world, the pandemic prompted residents to do more of their shopping online through services like Amazon. That shift has had a devastating impact on small businesses, many of which had been slow to move their operations online. In the first year of the pandemic, over one-quarter of Canadian businesses with less than 100 employees reported that revenues dropped at least 30 per cent, according to Statistics Canada.

“Delivery trucks were widespread in the region,” said Maude Bêty, a project manager at the Charlevoix Chamber of Commerce who led the rollout of its new currency. Others were driving into nearby Quebec City to do their shopping, she added. “We wanted to find a way to put a stop to that.”

Residents and visitors who trade their dollars to chouennes receive an equal amount plus five per cent in the currency, which is accepted by more than 150 stores and restaurants in the area—a number the local chamber of commerce is looking to grow even as pandemic restrictions ease, Bêty said. The currency’s name comes from the term for a local dialect of French that is spoken in the Charlevoix region.

The Bank of Canada Museum is still working on how it will display the Charlevoix notes and other pandemic-related acquisitions. The museum has been closed to visitors since March 2020, and hasn’t yet set a reopening date. In the meantime, though, its curators have continued acquiring and cataloging artifacts to eventually exhibit to the public.

“The question that’s always in the back of our mind is, ‘50 or 100 years from now, what are people going to want to know about this moment?’” Broeckx said. “Sometimes it’s not about an object. Sometimes it is really just about a story, and that’s equally important as having something physical in your hand.”