Photo: The Canadian Press

Britain's Queen Elizabeth and Canada's Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King

Losing two of Canada's wartime prime ministers from the country's $50 and $100 bills won't be a step backwards for a country that has plenty to learn about itself, a pair of leading history buffs say.

Soon after the federal government announced Thursday that the faces of William Lyon Mackenzie King and Sir Robert Borden would be dropped from the banknotes, Historica Canada weighed in, saying there will always be ways to pay tribute to the two men.

"We think that history is a moving target," said Anthony Wilson-Smith, CEO of Canada's largest independent organization devoted to enhancing awareness of Canadian history.

"Events only happen once. But there's always a thousand different ways to look at them."

Instead of Borden and King, each revamped banknote will feature the faces of prime ministers Sir John A. Macdonald and Sir Wilfrid Laurier, when they are released in 2018. Laurier is moving from the $5 bill and Macdonald is leaving the $10 bill, to be replaced by Viola Desmond, an African Nova Scotian civil rights pioneer.

With the change, Desmond becomes the first Canadian woman to appear on the face of a Canadian banknote.

Allan Levine, who wrote a 2011 biography about King, said it made sense to give Borden and King the boot.

"It reflects our attitudes today," he said. "The world wasn't only run by white men or politicians. There are other people who are also significant to Canadian history, and Viola Desmond is a good choice."

However, Levine said he believes King would not have approved.

"He was representative of his era, and Canada was a very intolerant place," he said. "King had classic attitudes about black people, about Jews, and his diary is full of this stuff."

King's erasure from the currency will have no impact on his place in history, Levine said.