Bill C-252 (Historical)

An Act to amend the Currency Act and the Royal Canadian Mint Act (abolition of the cent)

This bill was last introduced in the 40th Parliament, 3rd Session, which ended in March 2011.

This bill was previously introduced in the 40th Parliament, 2nd Session and the 40th Parliament, 1st Session.

Sponsor

Pat Martin  NDP

Introduced as a private member’s bill. (These don’t often become law.)

Status

Outside the Order of Precedence (a private member's bill that hasn't yet won the draw that determines which private member's bills can be debated), as of Dec. 3, 2008
(This bill did not become law.)

Summary

This is from the published bill. The Library of Parliament often publishes better independent summaries.

This enactment amends the Currency Act and the Royal Canadian Mint Act to provide that one cent coins will not be legal tender beginning on January 1 of the year immediately following the year in which the enactment is assented to, and will be called in following a proclamation by the Governor in Council.

Elsewhere

All sorts of information on this bill is available at LEGISinfo, an excellent resource from the Library of Parliament. You can also read the full text of the bill.

Currency ActRoutine Proceedings

December 3rd, 2008 / 3:45 p.m.
See context

NDP

Pat Martin NDP Winnipeg Centre, MB

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-252, An Act to amend the Currency Act and the Royal Canadian Mint Act (abolition of the cent).

Mr. Speaker, 2008 is the 100th birthday of the Canadian penny in its current form. Many Canadians believe that it should be its last birthday. In fact, we believe it should have a birthday party and a funeral at the same time because the penny has no commercial value. It does not circulate any more. They all wind up under my bed. In fact, it costs more to produce a penny than it is worth.

There are 20 billion pennies in circulation in Canada today and every year the minister who is responsible for the mint prints 1.2 billion more pennies, pennies that no one needs and no one wants.

This simple bill calls for the stopping of the production of the penny and the introduction of a rounding formula so that all commercial transactions would be rounded off to the nearest nickel so that we would not have a bunch of pennies in our pockets and under our beds.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)