OK I’ve been watching reruns of Degrassi and it’s obvious the actors are Canadian. Is it suppose to be set in Canada. I ask this as I know have seen three episodes where the kids are using American money.
Joey gets it. Melonie steals it out of her mother’s purse and Wheels and Snake both purchase things with American money
But Joey works at a radio station that starts with a C so that must be Canada right?
Are you absolutely sure it was American money? I don’t recall that, and I was a dedicated viewer of the show growing up.
De Grassi Street is an actual street in Toronto.
Yup. I am also in the middle of watching the series and I noticed the same thing. A big full frame close-up of an American $20 bill. It confused me as well.
I think it was the episode where they want to go to the concert and they keep borrowing $20 from one another.
Huh. Weird. Anyway, the entire run of Degrassi shows are unambiguously set in Toronto.
If DeGrassi High is set in Toronto, then it could make sense. Toronto is in close proximity to the U.S. / Canadian border. I grew up in Buffalo and made trips up there fairly routinely. Not like once a week, but every few months or so.
I also grew up in the period that DeGrassi High aired. (While I wasn’t a big fan, I remember the show.) But during that time period, the U.S. economy was booming and Canada was in a slump. On weekends, the Buffalo throughway would be clogged with cars with Canadian license plates. They all came for the shopping at the Walden Galleria Mall. Stores were often closed on Sundays in Canada, and shoppng was cheaper because of the lighter sales tax.
Also, when I was very young kid (70s - mid 80s) you could often get away with spending American money in Canada and vice versa. (That changed by the time I was in my 20’s though.) And a $20 American bill was worth more than a $20 Canadian bill. So, it’s not so out of the ordinary that Toronto kids might get (and value) American money.
I just finished the episode where Wheels visits his birth father in Port Hope. Wheels says it’s two hours from where he lives now. Toronto is 68 miles from Port Hope.
I read that the producers of the show went out of their way to use fake names so as not to date the show. This is why the movies the kids see and the bands they like have weird sounding names.
So I figured they might have purposely stuck things like American money in to make it so it’s not dated. Though the old fashioned American money does 
I lived on De Grassi St. a few years ago. Ironically, the only school that borders the street is named Eastgate.
The $20 dollars was an example of US localization…they edited the US version to put in US money instead of Canadian money, and do a few other things: they changed the license plates from Ontario license plates in a few scenes and there’s a scene were somebody is trying to buy booze with a fake ID and worries he doesn’t look 21.
Having driven between Toronto and Port Hope a number of times, I’d say it’s about a two hour drive. Depending on traffic and the time of day, it can take an hour simply to get out of Toronto (assuming you start from downtown). Then, you’re dealing with traffic through Pickering, Ajax, Oshawa, and Bowmanville. It’s pretty much all freeway driving once you get out of downtown, but it can be slow and heavy at times.