Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question. I took a stab at answering that question in my speech but I would be happy to review some of those facts with the hon. member.
As I said in my speech, all the options were not considered in that survey. We really should have asked Canadians whether they felt there should be a $2 currency at all. Maybe we should eliminate the $2 bill, which is very expenses, and not replace it with a $2 coin. Perhaps in five years with inflation having done its thing there would be a recommendation for a $5 coin. Then we would have to revamp all the vending machines, mint a new coin and go through the procedure once again.
We should be talking how we can save Canadian taxpayers the most money. I suggest in that consideration we look at whether there should be a $2 currency period, coin or bill. If it were determined we do not need that it would save much more than $250 million. That is what I was trying to get across to hon. members on the other side, had they been listening a little more closely.
Another thing we should be looking at is whether we still need the penny in Canada. Pennies are extremely expensive. We have been minting pennies because people hoard them. Pennies are put into jars and never get back into circulation. It is even worse
than the loonie which apparently is being stored in bank vaults. There are millions of them.