By John Ward
THE CANADIAN PRESS—OTTAWA
There may still be pennies from heaven, but they won’t be coming from the mint much longer.
The humble one-cent piece is set to disappear from Canadian pockets, a victim of inflation.
© — Photo by The Canadian Press
Canada will stop minting pennies in the fall according to today's budget.
Thursday’s federal budget said the Royal Canadian Mint will strike the last of the little coins this fall.
The budget says the cost of minting a penny has risen to 1.6 cents or $11 million a year. Its purchasing power has fallen to a 20th of its original value.
“Some Canadians consider the penny more of a nuisance than a useful coin,” the budget documents said.
And so the coin will go the way of the old 25-cent shinplaster.
“The penny is a currency without any currency in Canada,” Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said at a news conference.
It’s nothing but a nuisance for business, he added.
Pennies will still be legal tender, but as they slowly vanish from circulation, prices will have to be rounded up or down.
If the customer has the pennies, they can use them. Payments with debit or credit cards or cheques can also be to the penny. But if the customer is paying cash and doesn’t have the pennies, the total will go up or down to the nearest nickel. For example, $1.02 will become $1 and $1.03 will be $1.05.
The budget said experience in other countries that have dropped low-denomination coins suggests that rounding will be fair and there will be no impact on inflation.
As for those jars, boxes and bags of pennies sitting in countless drawers across the country, the government suggests people donate them to charities.
The penny has been under fire for years. New Democrat MP Pat Martin has introduced private member’s bills over the years to kill it.
Comments
Recent comments
Happy to see the pennys go! Hate carrying them around.
Are you sure the young people will know how to give change back after this . They have enough truble the way it is now
Please give me a break! We are talking about either 2 cents up or 2 cents down on a transaction. There must be bigger problems out there that we have to solve than this. If you made 100 purchases a year that were rounded up 2 cents that would be a massive 2 dollars extra. But hey, that is only my 2 cents worth!
Decide to pay with cash or card after you see the price. If the price is rounded up, pay the excat price with a card and save a couple of cents. If the price is rounded down, pay less with cash and be given a few cents.
far be it the government urging us to turn in our pennies to a loca charity...just like you said Holly, wvery penny counts...and I have to agree with anonymous, every store with sense will make sure they get to round up not down...tell me again who is this going to benefit??? sure as your socks it won't be the blue collar you and i.
'Fair' rounding? Just watch, ALL the prices for anything we'll purchase after the fall will end with .03, .08, .13, .18, etc after tax. Businesses make an extra two cents from every customer and over the course of the quarter they'll have enough for another new toy. They already have the habit of not minding being a few cents short when giving you your change but god forbid you're short two cents when first paying for it.
harper should be kicked out of canada he's getting to much like the u.s goverment he got plenty of money but the poor need every cent they can to survive and what about the janeway telethon every year people pass in a lot of pennies to help the hospital and other charities
what are two american pennies doing in this picture of canadian change?