Pretty soon if you’re paying with plastic, you won’t necessarily be using a credit card.

The Bank of Canada announced recently that it will be issuing plastic currency, following a model that has worked in Australia, according to the CBC. The new bills are still fairly paper-like, but they’re made with plastic fibers that allow the bills to last longer and make them harder to counterfeit.

Sounds like a pretty good idea, and just another example of Canada’s foresight in North America when comes to currency. One-dollar and two-dollar coins (loonies and twonies, as they’re known), are fantastic when you’re feeding the parking meter or using a vending machine. It’s ridiculous that we haven’t successfully introduced such coins into U.S. currency.

And that ends my currency rant.

Apolo Anton Ohno, who broke the U.S. Olympic record for Winter Olympic medals in Vancouver last month and won a little TV dance competition called “Dancing With the Stars” in 2007 apparently doesn’t think much of Canadian Pam Anderson’s chances on the upcoming season of the show.

Talking to Jay Leno on “The Tonight Show,” Ohno was asked to handicap the season.

“Between, what is it, Pam Anderson and Evan Lysacek?” Ohno told Leno, according to People.com. “Pam Anderson, she’s a little top-heavy. I think Evan is going to do very well. Plus, he’s an Olympic medalist!”

Now that he’s 16, Justin Bieber is looking to get behind the wheel, and he’s already got his high-profile friends hooking him up.

He reportedly was spotted driving Sean Kingston’s Ferrari around Miami in February, and tells People.com that his friend Diddy promised to get him a Lamborghini for his big 16th.

“But we all know Diddy’s not gonna give me his Lamborghini,” Justin told the magazine’s site. “He’s all talk.”

Yeah, that Diddy.

Justin’s looking for something a little more environmentally conscious, though.

“I think I want a Range Rover,” he tells People.

Stop me if you’re heard this one before: A naked guy walks into the mayor’s office.

That’s all.

A 34-year-old man was arrested in Regina today after he raced into City Hall stark naked and got into an elevator. He rode up to the 15th floor, where the mayor’s office is, where he was taken into custody, according to a report in the Calgary Herald.

A spokesman for the mayor’s office said they’ve “dealt with” the man before.

Hot on the heels of the 2010 Winter Olympics, where curling once again captured our imaginations, even if some of weren’t entirely clear on what was going on, a bunch of nude and semi-nude female curlers are being included in a calendar intended to raise money for the athletes.

While the 36-month calendar is filled with photos of nice-looking ladies, the big question on everyone’s mind seems to be whether 44-year-old Cheryl Bernard of the Canadian Olympic Team will be featured.

There was a rumor that an unidentified woman on the cover of a previous version (her back is to the camera) was Bernard, but Bernard has reportedly denied it’s her, and she now tells People.com that she won’t be stripping for the camera anytime soon.

“I think it’s okay for women to pose if they want to, but it’s not my thing,” she tells the site. “But it is nice to be recognized for what you do in your sport and for our fitness level, but I don’t pay attention to the other stuff.”

She went on to say that posing nude is “not … necessary in my life. It’s not on my Bucket List.”

Sure, it’s been a week since the hoax that shook Canada, but it’s worth mentioning once more that Gordon Lightfoot is not dead.

The 71-year-old Canadian singer took to the airwaves last week in Toronto to assure his fans that he was very much alive after reports began circulating that he’d passed away — one of which was confirmed by a musician friend of his who’d been duped by his own management.

“I’m fine, everything is good,” Lightfoot told a Toronto all-news station. “I don’t know where it comes from. It seems like a bit of a hoax or something, I’m not sure. I was quite surprised to hear (it) myself.”

He joked that “I haven’t had so much airplay on my music now for weeks.”

The friend, singer Ronnie Hawkins, explained that his management team in the United States had told him that someone claiming to be Lightfoot’s grandson told them the singer had died, according to a Canadian Press report.

“I think they can trace that phone call, maybe, and see who did that,” Hawkins said. “Oh, what a dirty, sick joke that is, but I’m glad it was a sick joke and not the truth.”

It is difficult to fathom the weight on Joannie Rochette’s shoulders as she prepared to compete in figure skating at the 2010 Winter Olympics just two days after her mother Therese died of a sudden heart attack in Vancouver.

With her entire nation and the world watching, the 24-year-old Montreal native has gone about her Olympic dream, no doubt in loving tribute to her mother, and has said she will not do interviews until she’s done competing. But Skate Canada Chief Executive William Thompson said, “It is providing her with stability in a very uncertain time of her life. The Olympic Games has always been her dream and her mum always supported that dream.”

Dan Jansen recalled on NBC’s coverage that he learned of his sister’s passing the day he was set to compete in speedskating. Emphasizing that everyone grieves in their own way, Jansen remembered falling on the ice twice in his races that day, but hoped that Joannie Rochette would have a better experience as she prepared to compete in figure skating just two days after her mother’s sudden death.

Jansen said he sent Joannie an e-mail to explain what he’d been through and gave her some words of encouragement to help her get through, and he advised her to skate with her mother in her heart.

Joannie’s father, Normand, sat emotionally in the crowd as his daughter warmed up. she teared up as the crowd cheered when her name was announced.

Joannie turned in a riveting and brave performance that earned her a personal best score from the judges, but Tuesday night wasn’t about numbers or judges.

She sobbed in her coach’s arms as she left the ice and her father stood and cheered along with the rest of the packed arena.

In the face of tragedy came great triumph, and that kind of emotion and perseverance is what the Olympic Games are all about.

Well done, Joannie.

The Great White North was ready for a party as its national hockey team faced off with its American rival on Olympic ice Sunday.

Alas, the Americans came through with an unlikely victory — and much of Canada watched it unfold before its eyes.

CTV says 10.6 million Canadians watched the contest, making it the most watched sports event in Canadian television history. http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/100222/entertainment/oly_tv_ratings

Here’s a little perspective for Americans, who may be thinking about the fact that 106 million people watched the Super Bowl a few weeks ago: Canada only had about 33 million people. That means about one-third of the nation was watching a qualifying round hockey game.

But what a disappointment it turned out to be.

The Canadians will have to work for another shot at the Stars & Stripes as they’ll now need to win a qualification match to get into the tournament bracket.

It seems to be the most downplayed reunion in recent memory, but J.D. Fortune will be performing with INXS when it takes the stage at the 2010 Olympics Victory Ceremony on Wednesday at BC Place in Vancouver.

The singer confirmed the news on his Web site, and the band made mention on it on its Facebook page, writing, “We have sold out our show at the Vancouver Winter Olympics on Feb. 24th and are excited to be playing for the Canadian fans. JD Fortune will do a special guest appearance at the show.”

Back in December, when the list of performers was first announced, we here at COTW speculated that Fortune would perform with the band, given the Canadian-heavy lineup for the Olympics concerts and the fact that without Ontario native Fortune, INXS is purely Australian band.

The band is set to tour the world this year, but it still isn’t clear whether Fortune will be on board, given all this “special guest appearance” business.

A fun piece from the New York Times today looks at the interesting split between right-handed and left-handed shooters in hockey.

Canadians, it seems, tend to shoot left-handed with a split of as much as 70 to 30 percent. About 60 percent of American hockey players shoot right-handed, however, and this all comes despite the fact that there is little difference (outside of the world of hockey) between the percentage of people who are right- and left-handed in the two nations.

It’s a good read. Check it out here.