Currency", as well as "Banking, Incorporation of Banks, and the Issue of Paper Money". This resulted in major changes to the monetary system in the new country, with control over coinage and bank notes centralised in Ottawa. Currency Acts In 1868, the federal Parliament enacted the first Currency Act. It provided for the possibility that Canada might give its dollar exactly the same value as the United States dollar, but in the meantime, the pre-Confederation values for currency were maintained. The dollars circulating in Ontario, Quebec and New Brunswick continued to circulate at the same value, while the Nova Scotia dollars continued to circulate in Nova Scotia at their higher, pre-Confederation value. This situation continued for three more years, until Parliament passed the Uniform Currency Act. It provided that Nova Scotia would now use the same dollar as the rest of Canada, based on the pre-Confederation dollar. The value of the dollar continued to be set by reference to the British sovereign and the American eagle, at the rate of 4.8666 Canadian dollars equal to £1, and ten Canadian dollars equal to the ten-dollar American eagle, the same rates as set in the 1853 Province of Canada legislation. The Uniform Currency Act applied automatically to Manitoba upon its admission to Confederation, but did not apply to British Columbia and Prince Edward Island when they joined. In 1881, Parliament passed an Act extending the Uniform Currency Act to those two provinces. Dominion notes and bank notes In 1868, the federal Parliament also enacted the Dominion Notes Act, to authorize the issue of government bank notes. The Act was similar to the Provincial Notes Act from the Province of Canada, and the existing Province of Canada notes were continued as dominion notes. The government notes were referred to as "Dominion notes", using the term then used for the federal government, to distinguish them from bank notes issued by the chartered banks. The dominion notes were partially backed by gold. For the first $5million in notes, the federal government was required to have gold reserves for twenty per cent of the value of the notes. The next $3million issued notes were required to be backed by gold reserves of twenty-five percent of the value of the notes. In 1871, the federal Parliament also passed a new Bank Act which replaced all the pre-Confederation banking legislation and created a uniform system of banking regulation