A new, high-tech $10 bank note was unveiled at the Royal BC Museum Thursday in honour of Canada’s 150th birthday.

The Bank of Canada held events across the country to mark the entry of the new bill into circulation.

It’s the first bill to feature four history-making Canadians: Sir John A. Macdonald, Sir George-Etienne Cartier, Agnes Macphail and James Gladstone.

“On the front of the note you see Sir John A. Macdonald, the first prime minister and one of the founders of confederation. Sir George-Etienne Cartier, he was another father of confederation and he was also very important in Canadian federalism,” said Trevor Frers, a senior regional director for the Bank of Canada.

“Agnes Macphail, she was a champion of equal rights in Canada and she was the first woman elected to parliament in 1921, and finally James Gladstone. He was committed to indigenous rights in Canada and he was the first senator appointed in 1958.”

Officials say the figures were chosen after the bank conducted two national surveys and focus groups involving 5,000 people.

The back of the bill features images of landscapes from across the country, including The Lions peaks near Squamish, a prairie wheat field and the Canadian shield.

Several new state-of-the-art security features on the bill also make it the most secure note to date.

“The first one you’ll see is this colour-changing arch, so as you tilt the note up and down you’ll see a checkered green to blue colour,” said Frers. “The second security feature are three 3-D maple leaves at the bottom of the note. It looks like it’s raised, but when you run your finger across it it’s flush to the note.”

The transparent window typical of Canada’s polymer notes is still there, but contains added holograms of the Canadian coat of arms, the Canadian flag, an embossed “150” and a piece of Inuit artwork called the Owl’s Bouquet.

Frers said the additional security features will make it even tougher for counterfeiters to pass off fake bills.

But anyone hoping to snag one of the special edition bills needs to move fast, because there aren’t many available and they won’t be reprinted once they run out.

“There’s only 40-million of these notes, and I know that sounds like a lot but there’s 36-million Canadians, so there’s just enough for every Canadian,” Frers said.

The Bank of Canada said the new bill would enter circulation immediately, and aims to make them "broadly available" by July 1.