4 February 2013
Last day of the Canadian Penny
In Canada, a penny is a coin worth one cent, or 1⁄100 of a dollar. According to the Royal Canadian Mint, the official national term for the coin is the "one-cent piece", but in practice the terms penny and cent predominate. Penny was likely readily adopted because the previous coinage in Canada [up to 1858] was the British monetary system, where Canada used British pounds, shillings, and pence as coinage alongside U.S. decimal coins and Spanish milled dollars.
In Canadian French, the penny is often known by the loanword cent; in contrast with the heteronymous word meaning "hundred", this keeps the English pronunciation. Slang terms include cenne, cenne noire, or sou noir [black penny], although common Quebec French usage is sou.
Production of the penny ceased in May 2012, and the Royal Canadian Mint ceased distribution of them as of February 4, 2013. However, the coin remains legal tender. Nevertheless, once distribution of the coin ceased, vendors were no longer expected to return pennies as change for cash purchases, and were encouraged to round purchases to the nearest five cents. Non-cash transactions are still denominated to the cent.
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