From Wikipedia: "In 2011 the Royal Canadian Mint had minted 1.1 billion pennies, more than doubling the 2010 production number of 486.2 million pennies. ...

From Wikipedia: "In 2011 the Royal Canadian Mint had minted 1.1 billion pennies, more than doubling the 2010 production number of 486.2 million pennies. ... The budget announcement eliminating the penny cited the cost of producing it at 1.6 cents." -- The announcement of the penny's removal may have been timed, but its removal was sensible, long coming, discussed for more than a decade, and needed. Minting a billion pennies a year, many of them lost, or hoarded, was senseless. So now we're centless.