Talk:Calgary Dollar

Verifying content
It's xmas day here, so I don't have materials to hand, but I'll try to gather up references beyond the Calgary Dollars website over the next week or so. Off hand, I can recall articles published in the Calgary Herald, Calgary Sun, FFWD and Alberta Views, as well as clips on local news broadcasts. I'm not sure if there are any public reports from our key funder—the United Way—that would be useful (finding out will have to wait until January when folks are back in the office).

As to whether it is a currency or not, I've got a bunch of physical bills in my wallet right now and that says to me that it is a currency. (Local currencies are legally recognized as such by Revenue Canada—with specific rules governing taxation to go with that.) The project's predecessor, Bow Chinook Barter Community, was a mixed system that had a printed currency and also directly supported bartering. Since the reorganization into Calgary Dollars, there's no formal support for barter.

--GrantNeufeld 21:41, 25 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I disagree. If you're my barber, and I give you 10 apples, each worth $1 in exchange for a haircut, Revenue Canada would expect you to report $10 of revenue when calculating your income for Income Tax.  As the consumer, I would be obligated to pay you $0.70 in GST on top of the 10 apples (or the service provider may deem the tax included in the $10 worth of apples).  In any non-currency transaction (e.g. barter), Revenue Canada measures the value of the item(s) using an appropriate mechanism, normally market value (if possible), and treats the transaction "as though" currency traded hands.  The fact Revenue Canada does this, does not mean it recognize apples, cars, houses, trucks, boats, hair cuts, Calgary Dollars, or any other such stuff as "currency".  The fact Revenue Canada doesn't allow a barter scheme to evade taxes, is not a signal of recognition.  As for the "Calgary Dollars" saying their currency, well the same is true of Monopoly money.  --Rob 22:50, 25 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Added: I changed verify to disputed, as I dispute the core statement "Calgary Dollars is a local currency in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.".  Verification remains a problem, but I took off the verify tag, as I don't wish to overload the article tags.  --Rob 17:42, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

Question: If this program were extended across the whole nation of Canada what would you call the currency? Would you still call it a "local currency" or would you call it a "national currency"? Surely some of these similir things have been spread across whole nations. --Rob 01:26, 27 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I have added a quick blurb explaining the term "local currency" to the article. The term is being used accurately to describe these dollars. The existence and use of Calgary Dollars is verified. I believe the "disputed" tag can be removed unless there is another point of contention. -Dr Haggis - Talk 05:24, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Articles for Deletion debate
This article survived an Articles for Deletion debate. The discussion can be found here. -Splash talk 23:52, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Correct name
The proper name of both the project and the currency is “Calgary Dollars” not “Calgary dollar”. The currency in singualr is known as a “Calgary Dollar”. Please do not change this again. Thanks. —GrantNeufeld 16:21, 14 July 2006 (UTC)