The Canadian Dollar is on the Rise

by Carlin Burton

The Canadian dollar is almost on par with the US dollar. This means that the price of goods imported from the United States will go down significantly. It is also a very good time to invest. Derek Wisebeck, Business graduate of NAIT says that if you’re on a student budget there are still investments better to put your money into than others.

“Given students cash flow needs, and regular occurrence and recurrence of their bills, they really should be sticking to GIC’s or Money Market Funds, anything that would be able to turn into cash fairly quickly and with no loss in principal.”

With the dollar so high, vacations to the United States are as inexpensive as they have ever been. Wisebeck says it would be beneficial to buy trips now rather than waiting.

“With the US dollar where it’s at, whether you’re looking at somewhere like Florida or Vegas for your spring break, it’s certainly much cheaper and you’re going to look at saving yourself perhaps 10 maybe f15 per cent over what you would have perhaps six months to a year ago.”

Wisebeck says that most things that Canadians buy are priced in Canadian dollars, and even with the Canadian dollars so high they will not be affected. Students could see a price decrease in a major part of their school fees.

“The textbooks that you purchase now as students are by and large printed and manufactured in the United States. The US dollar being close to on par with the Canadian dollar should drop the price of your textbooks in Canadian dollar terms.”

Lately the US dollar is experiencing some of the lowest exchange rates of the year while the Canadian dollar is showing no signs of slowing down. Like Wisebeck said if you are planning to invest or vacation in the States it would be wise to do it now.