An interesting survey taken last year and posted on the Canadian Mint's website in pdf format, discusses the future of the penny in Canada. It really doesn't reach any conclusions, but it certainly demonstrates the deep split in opinions, which is probably very similar to US attitudes. Although a survey sub-group was "coin accumulators", there is no discussion of the numismatic issues.
I'm a Canadian and a collector, and honestly, I have no interest in any pennies that are not copper. Might as well do away them... I have co-workers from Norway who visit here occasionally and they are amazed that we still use a 1 cent coin!
I don't live in Canada but I'm willing to guess that the pros and cons for Canada eliminating the penny are probably about the same as the US's. You think though that the Royal Canadian Mint would include coin collectors in their discussion though considering that's a large part of their revenue. Unless that's what they're calling "coin accumulators." However Canada has one up on us, they succesfully eliminated their $1 bill and replaced it entirely with a coin. They also got rid of their $2 bill (why the same people who favor getting rid of US's $1 bill never mention the $2 bill confuses me; that bill is so little used you'd think getting rid of it would be easy!). I'm sure some people raised objections, but in the end they overcame them for the sake of practicality and economy. Based on the track record I'd predict that if enough of a movement existed to get rid of Canada's penny, it would more likely succeed than in the US. As for collecting issues I wouldn't care all that much lol, but I only collect non-US coins by type, not by series (that applies to most US coins too), and already have several Canadian cents anyway, so I have no stake in this from a coin collecting perspective. If they make a new cent, I'd add it to my collection, but if they don't, no big deal to me. I'd imagine even a lot of collectors would feel the same way and colecting mostly zinc cents by series is something done largely as a force of habit than anything else.
