This only 2 days after the reuters article that cointained the following quote makes me think if we haven't been taken for a ride by the one that Phinnaeus Gage so dearly calls "Our Girl" by using Bitcoin to advertise a competing system backed by The Royal Canadian Mint...
From "exploring how to issue digital currency in the future" to launching it in a couple days...

So how long before this is hacked?  Place your bets!

I think not very long.  The details are very limited but it seems like all tx validation is done locally on the smartcard chip.  Hack that and you should be able to double spend at will.

Intesting! So fast!

Replace "MintChip" with "bitcoin" in the video, add a part about decentralization and an analogy to gold, and you get a bitcoin ad.

With regard to currencies, fiat or crypto, I see 2 issues: 1) the currency itself 2) how to make payments with the currency. In this case this will help to make new ways to pay with Canadian dollars which is good. But since it's still using the Canadian Dollar, the currency itself has the disadvantages of fiat currencies, namely the tendency of the central bank to increase the money supply over time and reduce the purchasing power of the currency. That's where fiat currencies are not doing a good job and where bitcoin could really shine, as a store of value and preserving its purchasing power over time.

So you can buy drugs with MintChip and send MintChips across borders.  If the gov't of Canada can do this then U.S. politicians must give into bitcoin.  I see this as a bitcoin win.

+1 for double standards!!

yup, way ahead i'm afraid. There will come lots of centralized versions of digital currencies by powerful players first that probably also have the resources to provide a strong network effect. People will have to get burnt time and time again until they learn the value of decentralization.