A New Democrat MP from Winnipeg is calling on the federal government to phase the penny out of Canadian currency.

"The time has come for the penny to go the way of the shinplaster," Winnipeg Centre MP Pat Martin told CBC News Thursday.

"Shinplaster" is the slang term for a Canadian banknote, worth 25 cents, that was issued prior to 1935.

Martin has drafted a private member's bill that would see production of the one-cent coin stopped. 

His research suggests it costs 4.95 cents to produce each penny, he said.

"The staggering thing is there's 20 billion pennies in circulation today and they continue to produce 815 million more every year," he said.

"It's obsolete. It has no commercial value. It doesn't circulate anymore. It just winds up in an ice cream bucket underneath people's beds and it costs more to produce than it's worth."

Once the coin is gone, Martin said, the price of items purchased with cash could be simply rounded up or down to the nearest nickel.

Martin plans to introduce his bill this fall. He believes it could take up to two years to completely phase out the coin.

Australia and New Zealand phased out their pennies in the early 1990s.