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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 of the coin is the "one-cent piece", but in practice the term penny or cent is universal. Originally, "penny" referred to a two-cent coin. When the two-cent coin was discontinued, penny took over as the new one-cent coin's name. 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 called a cent, which is spelled the same way as the French word for "hundred." Slang terms include cenne, cenne noire or sou noir (black penny) although common Quebec French usage is sou.

In March 2012, the Government of Canada tasked the Royal Canadian Mint to cease the production of pennies, effectively discontinuing the coin.

Description
Like all Canadian coins, the obverse depicts the reigning Canadian monarch at the time of issue. The current obverse depicts Queen Elizabeth II; her likeness has seen three design updates, the first occurring in 1965, a 1990 update to the design of Dora de Pedery-Hunt, and the 2003 update designed by Susanna Blunt. A special reverse side, depicting a rock dove, was issued in 1967 as part of a Centennial commemoration. It was designed by the Canadian artist Alex Colville.

The current coin has a round, smooth edge, and this has been the case for most of its history; however, from 1982 to 1996, the coin was twelve-sided. This was done to help the visually impaired identify the coin.

History
The first Canadian cents were struck in 1858 and had a diameter of 25.4 mm and a weight of 4.54 g. These cents were originally issued to bring some kind of order to the Canadian monetary system, which, until 1858, relied on British coinage, bank and commercial tokens (francophones calling them sous, a slang term that survives), U.S. currency and Spanish milled dollars. The coin's specifications were chosen with the intention of the coins also being useful as measuring tools. However, their light weight compared to the bank and merchant halfpenny tokens readily available at the time was a serious hindrance to their acceptance by the public. Some of the coins were even sold at a 20% discount, and were inherited by the Dominion government in 1867. Fresh production of new cents (with the weight increased to 5.67 g) was not required until 1876. The large cents of 1858–1920 were significantly larger than modern one cent coins, and have a diameter that is a little larger than the modern 25¢ piece (its diameter being 23.58 mm). After Confederation, these coins were struck on the planchet of the British halfpenny and were roughly the same value. Pennies were issued only sporadically in the third quarter of the 19th century. They were used in the Province of Canada, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia upon Confederation in 1867. New Brunswick and Nova Scotia had issued their own coinage prior to that date, with British Columbia, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland continuing to issue "pennies" until they joined Confederation. The high price of copper forced a reduction to the current size in 1920.

1936 dot cent
The rare 1936 dot cent is as notable in Canadian numismatics as the 1921 50¢ piece. There are only three known specimens of this coin. The last one sold at Heritage Auctions in January 2010 for over $400,000. It was graded specimen 66 by the Professional Coin Grading Service. All three known examples are in private collections, making it one of the few coins lacking in the Ottawa Currency Museum.

Composition throughout history

 * Although the RCM states 2000 as the year of transition from zinc to steel, zinc-core cents were issued in every year of the 2000s, except 2008. Steel cents dated before 2002 are test pieces for calibrating coin-operated machines, and are very rare in circulation.

From May 2006 to October 2008, all circulation Canadian pennies from 1942 to 1996 had an intrinsic value of over $0.02 CAD based on the increasing spot price of copper in the commodity markets. The break-even price for a 2.8 g solid copper penny is $1.61 USD/lb, with prices during this period reaching as high as $4 USD/lb.

Abolition
On March 29, 2012, the federal government announced in its budget that it would withdraw the penny from circulation in the fall of 2012. However, the penny will retain its value indefinitely and can continue to be used in payments.

There had been repeated debate about getting rid of the penny because of the cost of producing it and a perceived lack of usefulness. The budget announcement eliminating the penny cited the cost of producing it at 1.6 cents. A 2007 survey indicated that only 37 percent of Canadians used pennies, but the government continued to produce about 816 million pennies per year, equal to 25 pennies per Canadian. The Royal Canadian Mint has been forced to produce large numbers of pennies because they disappear from circulation, as people hoard these coins or simply avoid using them.

In mid-2010 the Standing Senate Committee on National Finance began a study on the future of the one-cent coin. On December 14, 2010, the Senate finance committee recommended the penny be removed from circulation, arguing that a century of inflation had eroded the value and usefulness of the one-cent piece.