The main thing I'm wondering about with the impending demise of the Canadian penny

In the Canadian federal government's most recent budget it was announced that the penny would soon be phased out, or at least that in the near future they would no longer be in production.  It was suggested that instead of using pennies transactions could be rounded to the nearest five cents when one needs to give change or pay.

My main question is who gets to decide when when the rounding rules are used and when exact change is given?  For instance, can a store opt not to give a customer a penny if they have one in the till and instead round down to the nearest nickel?  Can the customer pay only $0.40 even if the cashier can see that they have the two pennies that would be required to pay the $0.42 bill in full?

Presumably there isn't much that can be done about a customer deciding to pay with cash or electronic means of payment if one means of payment is more advantageous than the other.  But still, shouldn't we at least think about this issue?

I guess the point of all of this is that if hacking/digital heist movies (cf. Office Space) have taught us anything it's that if you skim pennies from millions of transactions you may eventually end up with millions of dollars.  Unfortunately I haven't yet heard how this problem will be resolved, or if it will be resolved, and which protections, if any, will be put in place for consumers and retailers (though I suspect that retailers are in a better position to make better use of these schemes than individual consumers).

Update:  The following quote from a Globe and Mail story doesn't give me much hope that the aforementioned problems will be adequately addressed prior to the demise of the penny.

Ottawa says it won’t be policing consumer-business transactions, but added that “businesses are expected to round prices in a fair, consistent and transparent manner.”

Really, this exists?

Recently I was going through my change looking for loonies and quarters to add to the laundry money pile when I noticed that one of my loonies looked particularly new, and a little different. Upon closer inspection I learned that I was in possession of a loonie commemorating the 100 year anniversary of the Montreal Canadians, an NHL hockey team.



I am really not sure exactly how I feel about this development. In many ways I understand that the Habs and hockey hold a special place in the hearts of many Canadians. I understand that people might want to celebrate a 100th anniversary with commemorative coins and stamps. In this case the Metro chain of grocery stores also seems to be involved as the sole distributor of the coins, presumably to encourage Habs fans to go to a Metro if they want to get copies of the coin. I guess I just find interesting that official currency is being used to promote the business interests of private companies.

On the other hand, if such ventures are cost-shared between the Mint and the Habs (and Metro) this may be a way of reducing the costs of currency production for tax-payers in a rather innovative and positive way. I guess I wonder how expandable such a program is. While I, and other Canadians, might be willing to see team logos of the Habs or the Leafs on coins on important anniversaries, would I feel comfortable allowing any company or group with sufficient funds to advertise by way of buying the tails side of a coin? If you allowed such a coin for They Bay would there be much public outcry? Now that such a precedent has been set will it be harder for the Mint to turn down such offers from other enterprises, and should I worry about this possible commercialization of the currency system.

Interestingly, it seems that this is by no means the first Canadian coin with a NHL team logo to exist (though I get the sense it is the first in regular circulation). When I checked out some of the Mint's sports related collectibles I found that most Canadian NHL teams already have collector's sets. At the moment I can find no evidence of the Mint selling coins with the logos of more traditional businesses, but it just doesn't seem to be that much of a stretch to think that they could exist in the not too distant future and that it might be nice to have some public discussion of such a change before it is implemented (I don't mean to suggest that such a plan is in the works, just that it seems plausible given the current practice of putting sports logos on coins).