Canadian Personal Finance Blog

Archive for April 20th, 2007

In case you have forgotten folks, the tax man cometh, and he isn’t going to just put his hands in your pockets either! Rick Mercer’s finest work, Knee In My Package.

Check out more of Rick Mercer’s work at the CBC.

So Stats Canada has posted a report card for the Canadian Economy, and it is a very interesting read (for me at least). Some important points that they hit:

• Employment is increasing, which is a good thing. The quality of employment and whether these folks are happy with their jobs is another interesting question to ask, but I really don’t know who might measure that one.
• There is a lot of investment in businesses in Central Canada especially.
• Cross border shopping is down below levels seen in 1972 (back when the Canadian dollar was worth more than it’s Yankee cousin).

That last point is very interesting. Sounds like a stronger Canadian Dollar and the new restrictions on border crossing (which hasn’t come in to play yet at Car border crossings), is choking off tourism to the Canadian border towns? Not good for folks who live in Cornwall, Kingston, or anybody else on the St. Lawrence corridor. Unfortunately in this article it seems less Canadians are going to the U.S. for shopping as well.

I know I have not gone to the U.S. for a day of shopping in years, mostly due to time constraints, but also I haven’t seen any need to do it. Now I may go down to Ogdensburg or maybe even Syracuse soon, in search of better court shoes, but that might be about it.