It costs us less than a penny to make a penny in Canada. In the United States it costs them more. It doesn't cost us much less than a penny to make a penny these days, but we still have positive seigniorage even on the penny, in terms of our production costs.
On the one-cent and five-cent coins, these are questions that are better addressed to the government. The government has to make the decisions about the currency, whether to continue with the penny or the nickel, and whether to have a five-dollar coin.
My personal view on it--and I don't think they can fire me for this, but you never know--is that the New Zealand guys might be on to something. I don't think it will be soon, but at some stage it might be an occasion to revamp our coinage. If we're going to get rid of the penny--I'm not necessarily advocating that, and certainly the government isn't--then maybe we want to look at the size and weight of the other coins as well and come up with a new palette of coins, as New Zealand did.
Maybe at that time the population will be more willing to consider a change. The polls that have been done show there's a great deal of uncertainty in the minds of Canadians as to whether it's a good idea to get rid of the penny. That's true in the United States as well. It remains quite a controversial subject, which the government will have to struggle with.