I’ll take a penny for your thoughts today. Maybe we’ll talk about ‘a penny saved is a penny earned’ or the old adage, ‘find a penny, pick it up and all the day you’ll have good luck.’ The poor one-cent piece is on the endangered list and its future is not as bright as a new penny.
Our esteemed finance minister has reviewed a Senate committee report recommending the penny be scrapped and has declared that the copper is a nuisance, but the government has not yet made a decision on its future.
Apparently it costs almost 1.8 cents to make the penny and three cents to distribute each one. These facts led our government to send the issue to a Standing Senate Committee to make a decision. This committee has been studying this problem for quite some time. This is the difference between government and business.
If a company was making sprocket flanges that cost $1.50 to make while they were selling them for $1, Bob from accounting would go to Joe in production and say, “Stop making and distributing sprocket flanges, we are losing money.” They would not gather together a bunch of retired sprocket flange makers, buy them a conference table and lunch and tell them to study the problem and come back with a report in a few months.
Granted, the Senate committee has to spend the first few meetings establishing a focus, developing a strategy and producing a mission statement. Government committees have to have catchy acronyms to identify themselves and it probably took much debate to come up with something like, Committee On Investigating Nuisances or COIN.
The meetings reveal the mint turns out 25 new pennies for each Canadian every year. Do they not know we don’t personally need any more? We have them on our dressers, our kitchen counters and our washers. We have jars of them at home and another jar full on or in our desks at work. They are in the consoles of our vehicles and always in our pockets unless we actually need one.
Retail associations do not want us to ‘round up’ our items for sale. Many other civilized countries put the price on the item rounded up to the next dollar, including tax. Canadian associations fear that this higher price display will scare buyers off. They think we are idiots and are always surprised when we get to the till. Restaurant associations caution that by reducing change, tips will be lower. Believe me, if your tips include pennies, you’d better not eat at the same place too often.
I’m sure the COIN committee will reach a decision soon. After reviewing the data, it will decide by flipping a coin. If it decides to do away with the penny, it will have to recommend what to do with the hundreds of millions of dollars we will save.
No doubt they will recommend building a Penny Museum and buy land somewhere in Ontario for a 25,000-square foot coin display. It will cost you $4.75 to get in, plus tax, which means each museum visitor will get some pennies to take home.
Right now, the prime minister is recommending we paint our fighter jets a more patriotic colour. I hope this debate doesn’t delay the penny decision. The PM always seems to get his two cents in somewhere. At least that’s what McGregor says.