Last week I wrote about the benefits of using cash for our day-to-day purchases. As mentioned, studies have shown that we tend to spend 17% less by using cash than by using credit or debit cards. Unfortunately, the Bank of Canada is currently exploring the creation of a Digital Canadian Dollar. At this time the Bank of Canada is not suggesting that this will replace cash, but rather create “a safe, stable and official payment option” for when Parliament decides we need to transition to it. They are exploring this because “there may come a time when cash is not widely accepted in day-to-day transactions, which could exclude many Canadians from the economy.”
The Bank of Canada’s website maintains that a Digital Canadian Dollar would be less expensive to use than crypto currencies, more convenient, secure, private, available to everyone, and still be able to use when the internet is not available.
This sounds all well and good, but I would encourage you to ask yourself what are we giving up? How much autonomy are we surrendering with a Digital Dollar? Will Parliament have the power to suspend your access to a digital dollar based on ideology like they did during the trucker convoy of 2022? I encourage you to tell the Bank of Canada that we don’t need nor want a Digital Canadian Dollar by completing the survey at https://www.bankofcanada.ca/digitaldollar.