Tom e-mails with more on the Loonie:
Last week I was in Alberta on (as you might say) bidness when parity occurred. (I was going to call in to speak with John and you Saturday, but I was on two kid, two sport transport duty and I'm not capable of both reminding the kids for the fifth time to change uniforms as we drove between events while also attempting to make the salient and succinct points each caller to the NARN is required to make.) Although I was in Edmonton the evening the Oil Kings made their return to the Western Hockey League after a twenty some year absence, I was not able to secure tickets to the event (didn't care enough to try either).
From my view, the reason their economy is doing so well has nothing to do with any Canadian government policy and has a lot to to do with U.S. government policy. The provinces most beholden to Ottawa/big government policy - i.e. the provinces to the East of Manitoba - are doing poorly with the Maritimes experiencing 25% and greater unemployment and a population that is heading for the exit (Western Canada). The Western provinces - which are more conservative politically - are carrying the nation with low unemployment (unemployment is around 2.5% in Alberta). The Liberals even lost a couple of seats in Quebec last week, an event so extrordinary that the CBC made it sound like a situation where the DFL lost a seat in the Star Tribune building if the Star Tribune building were its own congressional district.
Here is why I think it is U.S. government policy pumping their economy up: Where we won't drill in ANWR or exploit other energy opportunities, their government encourages and if you believe the recent Alberta Government's Report of Oil & Gas Royalties is gouging, er, taxing their energy industry less than they could because they realize - even the CBC pointed this out - that energy is the goose laying the golden eggs that are leading to large surpluses; and Western Canada's farmers are harvesting wheat at record prices given the shortage of that commodity due to U.S. farmers planting corn from fence line to fence line to score all of that fine ethanol subsidy cash. The CBC also blames U.S. deficits and tax cuts where I would blame out of control spending leading to deficits.
There wasn't much crowing about parity other than on a "Daily Show" type program where the host claimed that the last time the two currencies were at parity the U.S. was in an un-winnable war and had an unpopular president. The last time the currencies were at parity was 1976; the U.S. wasn't at war and Ford wasn't unpopular he just wasn't as popular as Jimmah. So I don't know wtf that guy was talking about.
Other than that, most of the commentary I heard was that it wouldn't last--commodity prices go up and go down; that the exchange rate was wrecking their tourist industry with tourism in general off nearly 35% and manufacturing would suffer as everything exported to the South would be more expensive.
On the plus side, all NHL contracts are renumerated in U.S. dollars, so with the exchange rate windfall the Canadian teams might have some left over money to pay for better facilities. The Edmonton paper ran a feature on the Oilers new locker room with its up-to-date facilities complete with a trophy case large enough to hold their five Stanley Cup replicas with room for a sixth. No mention of extra outlets for all of the additional "hot combs" the players will surely be buying. It's not too late to jump on the Flames (or Canucks or Oilers or whoevers) bandwagon, just be prepared to pay through the exchange rate nose if you ever want to attend a home game.
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