A “penny-less” Canada
How many pennies have you dropped… how many did you bother picking up? That’s why some are pushing for Canada to drop the penny from our money circulation. The Royal Canadian Mint, along with the Department of Finance recently conducted a study on this issue - 64-percent of us wouldn’t dig into the couch to salvage a coin that had fallen from our pockets.
- 27-percent of Canadians are strongly in favour of removing the penny from circulation
- 18-percent are strongly against the idea of dropping it
- Economists say that inflations has led to the penny being more hassle than it’s worth
- Many Canadians believe the penny is part of our heritage
- 4-percent of consumers describe it as “dirty, smelly, germ-ridden”
- It costs “slightly” less than a penny to make a penny, at the moment
The ultimate decision rests in the hands of Finance Minster Jim Flaherty.
“The Canadian Mint and the Department of Finance review the coinage system from time to time, and examining the penny’s usefulness is always a part of those reviews,” Chisholm Pothier, a spokesman for Mr. Flaherty’s office, said Wednesday. “But, at this time, there are no changes to the penny planned.”
If the penny were to be removed from circulation, my question would be how certain things would be rounded to the nickel after taxes… Sure you can round something from $0.99 to $0.95; but what about when you add the taxes? Who keeps the extra 2-3 “pennies”?
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The penny is robbing us of productivity by wasting our time. I suggest that we launch a National campaign to collect them all to assemble a penny mountain on Parliament Hill and then to apply the 20 or so billion of collected coins to pay down the National debt. Who wouldn’t contribute these hard-to-get-rid-of coins that are sitting in jars to something useful, such as paying down the debt?
The smallest unit of currency in Australia is the 5 cent piece. They dropped the penny many years ago and integrated a system where everything is rounded up or down when you buy something in the stores. Living “penniless” is easy and if Australia has done it successfully, I don’t see why we can’t either.