First it was Virginia. Coming up here with the assistance of New Brunswick economic development officials to attract our companies to move there (or at least set up new facilities there). Now, I see numerous states planning ‘missions’ to Canada. Colorado’s governor is coming to western Canada. Michigan’s Governor is coming. The Campbells are coming, hurrah, hurrah.
You see. With the dollar at $1.06 (oops, it just dropped as I write to $1.04), it might actually make economic sense for companies that built factories or IT studios or call centres here at $0.62 dollars (2002) to service U.S. markets to move these facilities to the lower 48.
As a result, every U.S. economic developer from Bangor to Baton Rouge will be here attempting to seduce our firms (our meaning Canada – there’s not much to take from New Brunswick – after Irving’s oil, some pulp, a little rock and some fish who else is there that actually exports a lot of product to the U.S?).
But the currency cuts both ways. I see that Sarkozy himself made a pitch when he was here last week for a “strong U.S. dollar policy” coming from the U.S. and the Canadian dollar has dropped six cents since (say that six times fast).
I’ll bet you my collection of Barry Manilow records that our dollar drops to somewhere in the low $0.90 cent range within six months.