In Canada a penny is a coin worth one cent or 1⁄100 of a dollar. According to the Royal Canadian Mint, the official national term of the coin is the "1 cent coin", but in practice the term penny or cent is universal. Penny was likely readily adopted because the previous coinage in Canada (up to 1858) was the British monetary system, where Canada used British pounds and pence as coinage.
The first Canadian cents were stuck in 1858 and were larger than today, a little larger than a 25 cent piece (quarter). They were used in the colonies of Upper and Lower Canada and adopted by the colonies of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia upon Confederation in 1867. New Brunswick and Nova Scotia issued their own coinage prior to that date. The high price of copper forced a reduction to the current size in 1920. Until 1997, the Canadian penny was nearly (98%) pure copper. Between 1997 and 2001, pennies were made from copper plated zinc. Since 2001, the penny has been manufactured from copper plated steel.
In Canadian French, the penny is also called a cent, which is spelled the same way as the French word for "hundred" but is pronounced (and occasionally spelt) cenne. Slang terms include cenne noire or sou noir, "black penny."
Like all Canadian coins, the obverse depicts the reigning monarch at the time of issue.
The current coin has a round, smooth edge, and this has been the case for most of its history; however, from 1982 to 1996, the coin was twelve-sided.
A special reverse side, depicting a rock dove, was issued in 1967 as part of a Centennial issuance.
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