Mint to stamp out Canada’s last penny this morning

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This article was published 04/05/2012 (4928 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

OTTAWA — The final penny ever produced in Canada will be struck in Winnipeg this morning.

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty announced in March the penny will no longer be minted, and he will be on hand today as the final one-cent coin makes its way off the assembly line.

“All that’s left to do is call the Health Department and arrange for a proper burial,” said Winnipeg NDP MP Pat Martin.

Martin has introduced private member’s bills to get rid of the penny several times. The bills eventually got Flaherty’s attention and the plan to eliminate the penny was in the federal budget March 29.

“The penny is a currency without any currency,” Flaherty said on budget day.

The one-cent coin costs 1.6 cents to produce. A Senate committee held hearings on the penny in 2010 and didn’t find a single person or group who wanted to keep it. It costs businesses and charities more to roll and transport pennies than they are worth.

Canada has had pennies since 1858. The first ones minted in this country were in 1908. In 1976, the Royal Canadian Mint opened its Winnipeg plant and all coin production was moved there, including the penny.

In 2010, 486 million pennies were produced at the Lagimodiere Boulevard plant. They are 94 per cent steel, 1.5 per cent nickel and 4.5 per cent copper-plating or copper-plated zinc.

Since Flaherty’s announcement, people have flocked to the mint’s gift shop in Winnipeg to buy rolls of pennies. There are also penny cufflinks for sale at $44.95 a pair. Flaherty donned a pair on budget day.

The mint will continue distributing pennies until fall. They will continue to be legal tender indefinitely, so people can keep using them. Credit card and debit card transactions will still be calculated to the penny.

In situations where pennies aren’t available, retailers are asked to fairly round after-tax prices to the nearest five- or 10-cent mark. The government’s guideline would see a cup of coffee costing $1.78 or $1.79, or $1.81 or $1.82, rounded up or down to $1.80 for cash transactions. A coffee costing $1.83 and $1.84, or $1.86 or $1.87, would be rounded up or down to $1.85.

Businesses are encouraged to still accept pennies and do not need to update their cash registers, because prices will still be set in one-cent increments.

mia.rabson@freepress.mb.ca