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Canadians love American money, as much as we love to hate Americans. Now of course, we don't really hate Americans, we just have a national inferiority complex that leads us to knock our more demonstrative
Southern neighbours at every opportunity. Some of the criticism may be deserved, a lot of it is not, but regardless of how Canadians shade their attraction or aversion to the U.S., one colour (or color) is clearly popular, GREEN. It's all about the Benjamins.
Nowhere is that more evident than in the burgeoning ecommerce arena where Canadian companies of all stripes (and stars) are pricing their products in U.S. dollars. Canadian software companies charge Canadians in US currency too, and sooner or later Ottawa will get wind of this and make it front page news.
The recent Free Trade retrospective at McGill was a celebration for many, but the protectionist sentiment runs as deep and solid as the Canadian Shield North of the 49th. It promises to be quite a flap when the extent of this cross-border exchange program becomes public.
The Internet has proven itself a worthy opponent for governments everywhere. It remains to be seen whether governments here can stomach the defacto replacement of Canadian currency with Yankee dollars in this critically important segment of the economy.
From this vantagepoint, a single currency is inevitable and it won't be John A. MacDonald's portrait that wins the day. If you want to play in this game you better bring U.S. dollars to the table.
- Michael Robertson |
