High loonie causing harm says Mulcair

NDP leader Thomas Mulcair said Saturday that parts of the country are paying a price for the prosperity enjoyed by natural-resource sectors such as the oil-sands in Alberta, because of the way they raise the value of the Canadian dollar.

"It's by definition the 'Dutch disease,'" Mulcair said Saturday on the CBC Radio show The House.

The "Dutch disease" is a reference to what happened to the Netherlands economy in the 1960s after vast deposits of natural gas were discovered in the nearby North Sea.

The resulting rise in its currency was thought to have caused the collapse of the Dutch manufacturing sector, and Mulcair said the same thing is happening in Canada.

"The Canadian dollar's being held artificially high, which is fine if you're going to Walt Disney World, [but] not so good if you want to sell your manufactured product because the American clients, most of the time, can no longer afford to buy it."

The Canadian dollar has traded higher or close to parity with the U.S. dollar for most of this year. Mulcair cited Ontario, Quebec and New Brunswick as some of the places affected by the high loonie.

But Alberta Environment Minister Diana McQueen, who was also on the show, said Mulcair was being divisive in his treatment of the oilsands.

She called it "old-style politics; trying to pit one part of the country against another."

Original Article
Source: the province
Author: Postmedia News