With penny gone, MP targets nickel

New Democrat Martin would also replace quarter with 20-cent coin

Making cents made no sense, but getting rid of the penny is only the beginning, says NDP MP Pat Martin.

As the Royal Canadian Mint stops distributing pennies Monday, Martin’s eye is turning to the nickel and, eventually, the quarter.

The MP for Winnipeg Centre plans to launch a private member’s motion by the end of the week to eliminate the five-cent coin and re-jig the rest of Canada’s currency. His “master plan” is to have a coin currency in multiples of 10 — 10, 20 and 50-cent coins, and $1, $2 and $5 coins.

“One down, one to go,” Martin told Postmedia News on Sunday.

“You keep it all at multiples of 10 and Bob’s your uncle — you’ve got a functioning currency system. There’s just no good argument for keeping the nickel except for as a place to put the beaver.”

The Conservative government announced in last March’s federal budget it was ending production of the penny because — due to rising metal, labour and other manufacturing costs — it actually costs 1.6 cents to mint each of the one-cent coins.

Starting Monday, businesses are encouraged to begin rounding cash transactions to the nearest five-cent increment. So, a transaction totalling $1.02 would round down to $1, but a purchase of $1.03 would round up to $1.05.

The rounding system after eliminating the nickel would be similar, Martin said. Total figures ending in one, two, three, four or five cents would round down, and those ending in six, seven, eight or nine cents would round up.

And, just as it applies to the penny’s elimination, only cash transactions would be affected, Martin said.

The government says that stamping out the penny will save taxpayers around $11 million a year.

While the business case for killing the nickel isn’t quite as strong as it is for eliminating the penny, the nickel still does cost more to produce than it’s worth, Martin said.

He added it would mean savings for the economy in terms of lost time and productivity — people would go through checkout lines faster, clerks would spend less time making change, and businesses wouldn’t have to deal with as much coinage.

“If you’re a reasonablesized business, you’re moving wheelbarrows full of nickels and pennies back and forth to the bank every month,” Martin said.

“It’s just a drain on the economy as well as an unnecessary cost to the mint.”

Re-jigging Canada’s currency to keep it current, relevant and economic is an argument Martin has been making since 2008, when he first introduced a private member’s bill to get rid of the penny.

It’s been a surprisingly difficult sell, he said, but “now that the dust has settled on the penny,” it’s time to urge Minister of Finance Jim Flaherty to consider the nickel, Martin said.

“It shouldn’t be as tough as a slog now because the case has been made that life as we know it isn’t going to end if we eliminate the lowly penny,” Martin said.