Lighter loonies and toonies were introduced this year in a bid to save money, but CTV News has learned that governments and schools in Metro Vancouver have spent nearly a quarter of a million dollars to adapt to the new coins.

Customers of vending machine supplier Brokerhouse Distributors Inc. were caught off guard when the coins were introduced in March, according to Burnaby branch manager Bill Chadwick.

“It was a very frustrating time period. Every phone call we got was people asking, ‘What can I do, can you help me?’” he told CTV News.

“We just got slammed.”

The company’s waiting time to convert machines to accept new coins ballooned from hours to as long as 14 weeks. Because the coins flooded Vancouver markets first, vending machines in the region had the least time to prepare.

“Vancouver really got hit. And yet, when I was talking to my customers in Edmonton and Calgary, they were seeing one or two where we're seeing hundreds,” Chadwick said.

The Royal Canadian Mint hopes to save about $12 million per year in the changeover to the new $1 and $2 coins, but both private industry and taxpayers were hit hard in the switchover.

Chadwick’s company was brought in to revamp TransLink’s ticket machines, at a cost of $17,000 to the transit authority.

“When these coins started going through ... they just spit them back out at the customer. What we’ve had to do is reprogram the machines to recognize the right kind of metal,” TransLink spokesman Drew Snider said.

CTV News checked with each government and university in Metro Vancouver and discovered that converting machines like parking meters will cost about $235,000. That includes:

  • $4,500 paid in Surrey
  • $10,000 paid in both White Rock and New Westminster
  • $25,000 paid in both Burnaby and Richmond
  • and $100,000 estimated cost in Vancouver

Vancouver councillor Kerry Jang said the city wasn’t prepared for the huge bill.

“It's just an unanticipated cost. It’s $100,000 in our capital budget. A hundred thousand dollars we can't spend somewhere else. This was just dictated to us by the federal government. There was no consultation -- no one even told us,” he said.

“It's a case of downloading it onto municipalities and we’ve got to pick up all the messes they make.”

Other Canadian cities did get a warning about the problem, but not those in B.C. A spokesman for the Mint said it would look at “a broader range of options to communicate in the future.”

The federal government says taxpayers will realize the savings from the new coins in the long run.

With a report from CTV British Columbia’s Jon Woodward