Pat Martin: Penny wise, pound foolish

How's this for priorities? The NDP’s Pat Martin is more fixated on the penny, than he is in investigating $1 million life insurance bribes made by parties in office,

In paralyzed fear that it may benefit the Liberals more than the NDP, Pat Martin, as a member of the Ethics Committee, voted against an Ethics Committee hearing into the allegation that Stephen Harper had prior knowledge that his party attempted to influence Chuck Cadman's vote with a $1 million life insurance policy bribe.

Turns out Pat Martin is more keen to eliminate the penny than he is keen to eliminate corruption. Which do you suppose costs Canadians more? The penny? Endless corruption?

Why am I reminded of ATM fees? The NDP have a perverse sense of priorities, always starting with the least important and never working up from the bottom of the barrel.


NDP bill would kill penny by next year

April 02, 2008
Richard Brennan
in Ottawa
Robert Benzie
in Toronto
OTTAWA — An NDP MP says the penny is an "expensive nuisance" and should be scrapped this year on its 100th anniversary.
"The penny is of no commercial value, it does not circulate and costs more to produce that its actually worth," said Pat Martin (Winnipeg Centre), who introduced a private members' bill today calling for the penny's demise before year's end.
"There is no business case for continuing to produce the penny. Making cents, in fact, make no sense at all," he told a news conference, adding his bill includes a formula to round off to the near nickel.
Getting rid of the penny has been talked about before, but Martin said recent studies confirm that the "copper" has outlived its usefulness and is actually costing taxpayers money.
He says it costs 4.5 cents to produce each penny.
Each year, Martin said, the government spends $130 million to produce 1.2 billion pennies that end up, for the most part, under beds, in jars and tins and even the gutter.
Other countries have already moved to eliminate the penny, including Australia, New Zealand, France, Spain and the Netherlands "and life as we know it did not come to and end in those countries," Martin said.
"They managed to cope quite well and, in fact, they have introduced a rounding formula," he said. "My bill will also recommend to take care of what we do with the odd number pricing," he said.
Premier Dalton McGuinty added his voice to Martin's call for elimination of the 1-cent coin.
McGuinty said Canadians want change by getting less change in their pockets.
"I just think ... a penny ain't what it used to be," the premier told reporters this morning.
There are 20 billion pennies circulating in Canada.
Martin said this year marks that 100th anniversaryof the pennyin Canada. "We believe at the same time we have a birthday party for the penny, we should have a funeral."

http://www.thestar.com/News/Canada/article/409136