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).

Royal Bank, the US Government and the almighty dollar

Yesterday I briefly heard about Canadian dual citizens who had their American funds bank accounts closed by Royal Bank. It was suggested that the customers only found out afterwards. Furthermore, it is being reported that US government policy is the impetus for this activity, though I can’t quite understand why any reasonable person or institution would follow along (partly because none of the stories I have read have given any details about the US policies).

Mainly I am not quite sure why the US cares about this practice right now so much that they are causing banks to take this action. Many foreign nationals have been using US currency for years, without the consent of the US government. I would guess that many individuals will continue to do so in the future, even with the implementation of this crack down. Additionally, I am not quite sure how a country can control what happens to its currency once it leaves its borders. If Royal Bank, or any other bank for that matter, would like to offer accounts in foreign currencies it would seem to be up to the bank and the institution issuing their charter, not the country from which the currency originates (though maybe the international and inter-connected nature of the current banking system has caused this to change).

It would be interesting to know if the same rules are being followed in the US. In many ways I would find it hard to believe that the US is able to disallow dual citizens (people who are full US citizens) access to banking services, even if they wouldn’t want them to access these services. It seems somewhat hypocritical to expect more from banks located in foreign nations, though I guess they can boss these banks around without worrying about the constitutionality of the whole thing.

It seems that there is also an element of sloppy reporting in all of this. It was not initially reported that not all dual citizens were not having their US funds accounts shut down. The implication was that it was affecting everyone, something that is clearly not the case (as I haven’t had mine shut down). In stories that came out today it was reported that individuals would be able to have these accounts if they could demonstrate that they resided in Canada (a potentially temporary and possibly meaningless measure).