Monday news round-up: Small change

Who needs a bridge when you can hoverboard across the St. Lawrence?

RIP, penny. Your days of making our hands smell awful while we spend hours rolling you up to make a few bucks are over. Now all cash purchases will be rounded up or down to the nearest zero- or five-cent mark (debit and credit card purchases will remain unrounded). It makes us wonder why it took this long to happen. In fact, know what’s a novel idea? Having all store price tags reflect the actual price at the register, taxes in.

Anyway, CBC Montreal posted a tongue-in-cheek obituary for the penny, tracing its long and storied history. (But inquiring minds want to know: can we still roll up our pennies and bring them to the bank? We’ve got at least 10 bucks in copper-plated zinc.) P.S. Check out the Google.ca doodle.

Is the nickel next to go? Small change may end up an endangered species.

Transport Canada wants to install tolls on the future Champlain Bridge. As a result, Montreal’s executive committee has taken this opportunity to make a wish list of stuff it wants on the bridge, which includes a light rail system connecting the South Shore to downtown Montreal. It would be totally unnecessary, though — by the time this bridge goes up, people are just gonna be using jetpacks and hoverboards to cross the St. Lawrence anyway.

The faintly interesting race for the leadership of the Quebec Liberals continues. The latest development: the guys vying for the big chair, Pierre Moreau, Raymond Bachand and Philippe Couillard, are all in favour of developing Quebec’s oil and gas resources, opponents of fracking be damned. But as the day of reckoning that is the March leadership convention approaches, a bigger concern for these guys is drumming up interest in their languishing party. ■