Government considers scrapping nickel: "We're just not as big a fan of change as we thought"

OTTAWA, ON—After ending production of the penny in 2013, the Canadian government announced today that it's now considering getting rid of the nickel after realizing it's not as concerned with change as it seemed to be during last year's election campaign.

"We sat down with Trudeau on his very first morning in office," explains Liberal spokesperson Martha Freeman. "We took a look at the nickel, the dime, the quarter, and the difficult process of electoral reform. And we all kind of felt, ugh, this is all so messy. Do we really need all this? We agreed that we need to simplify things. We need to streamline."

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Freeman adds, "The situation in many Indigenous communities is dire. It's terrible. Is that the kind of heavy thing people want to carry around with them all day? If you just forget all about it, your step gets a bit lighter! So that's what we're thinking."

Freeman says initially, the government was quite enamoured of the idea of change, citing the fact that Trudeau ran his election campaign under the slogan "Real Change Now."

"Don't get me wrong – some change is good," Trudeau explains. "Like loonies, toonies, and gender parity in the cabinet."

However, Trudeau says that when it comes to generating change, his government has to draw the line somewhere.

"Pennies? Nickels? Restoring decorum to the House? Meh. Turns out we're just not super into that kind of change."

Trudeau cites the recent approval of a natural gas project in BC as another example.

"The previous administration did a terrible job of honouring environmental assessments of proposed energy projects," he says. "We talked about doing better, but then we went ahead and approved a pipeline last month with little regard for the environmental consequences. Why did we do that? Well, I think we can all agree that if you have too much change it's kind of annoying. Nobody wants all that change dumped out all over the place."

Freeman adds that Canadians shouldn't be alarmed if the nickel gets scrapped, as ultimately, bills are really "where it's at."

"Specifically, the kind that get stuck in parliament for months and months on end and never actually pass," she clarifies.

Remember the penny? Man, I miss the penny...

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