collecting - Protesters plan to put decals on Loonies --- Royal Canadian Mint in Ottawa not Happy

FROM:
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Politics...235316-cp.html

Protesters plan to put decals on Loonies

By THE CANADIAN PRESS

VANCOUVER, B.C. - A Victoria-based environmental group
is using the Canadian dollar to spread a very graphic
message.

(STORY COIN IMAGE PHOTO)
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Politics...Tankers.ca.jpg
An environmental group is distributing
200,000 cling decals to apply to the
Canadian dollar coin. (notankers.ca)

Dogwood Initiative, which is dedicated to sustainable
land reform, is distributing 200,000 decals to stick
on the one dollar coin's loon design.

The black decal would cover the loon and the
horizontal lines depicting water to create an
illusion that the bird and its surroundings are
coated in oil.

Dogwood Initiative hopes the campaign warns Canadians
about potential federal support for proposals to
allow oil tankers along B.C.'s north coast,
including Hecate Strait, Queen Charlotte Sound and
Douglas Channel.

Calgary-based Enbridge Inc. (TSX:ENB) plans to build
a 1,170-kilometre pipeline to carry tar-sands oil
from Edmonton to Kitimat, B.C. where it would be
loaded onto tankers for transport to Asian markets.

Environmentalists say a ban on oil tanker traffic
off the West Coast has been in place for more than
40 years and construction of a supertanker port in
Kitimat raises the potential for a devastating oil
spill.

"We're on our way to distributing about 200,000 of
them," said Dogwood spokesman Charles Campbell of
the decals.

The group is working with some businesses who will
apply the decals to loonies that come into their
stores through customers.

He cited a chocolate shop on Denman Island and
some coffee outlets in Ottawa as examples of
businesses that would participate.

Dogwood has already received a call from the
Royal Canadian Mint in Ottawa, he said.

"They're not very fond of what we're doing,"
Campbell said. "They said we were in breach of
the Currency Act. The issue doesn't seem to be
defacing. It seems to be using currency for
purposes other than legal tender."

The decal is circular and the same size as the
loonie. It's transparent except for the
blackened loon.

It sticks to the coin by "static cling" and can
be removed without damaging the coin, Campbell
said.

"We think we're on the right side of the law
regarding defacing coins because it doesn't
do any damage to the coins."

The goal of the campaign is legislation in
support of the moratorium, he said.

"What we are asking for is a legislated tanker
ban on the coast."

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