Digital Brainwaves

Howard Moscoe is out of his mind.

Having solved all of the other problems Toronto is facing, this City Councilman thinks American change should be banned from the city transit system.

For a great many years, the United States Dollar has been valued higher than the Canadian Dollar. I can’t speak for many other areas in the U.S., but in western New York, here near the border, very often Canadian change has been accepted at par with U.S. change. It hasn’t been worth the effort to try to sort it out, even at nearly 2-to-1 exchanges, so it’s just been accepted.

In the last few months, with a weakening U.S. Dollar and a strengthened Canadian Dollar, the exchanged has tilted in Canada’s favor, with $1 CAD buying you $1.04 USD at the time of this writing, and as much as $1.07 in recent weeks. So now that the Loonie has edged just ever so slightly ahead of the American buck, what’s Moscoe’s bright idea?

Unilaterally reject U.S. coins on buses, streetcars, and in parking meters.

When, from what I’ve read, the City of Toronto is already scraping the barrel for cash to keep public transit running at at least the same levels as now, the millions of dollars it would cost to implement such a filtering system is somehow worth getting back the penny you’re losing off the occasional American quarter?

Fortunately, the rest of the city council didn’t think so, shooting down this silly proposal. Methinks the councilman may want to reexamine his priorities.