Even Tycho at Penny Arcade is mentioning it – despite the Canadian dollar being (just barely) worth more than the American, we're still getting gouged with our consumer purchases.

Sure, it's been a long while since the Canadian dollar was on top, and business may be slow to adapt. But it's not like this was unseen. Perhaps it was a bit quicker than expected, but the signs have been there since 2005 that we were going to meet the American dollar ("Yankee lira" to our "Hudson Bay peso" now), and the excuses used to explain why we're still paying 10% or more on top of Americans just don't stack.

I like the idea to pay it in American dollars, but that doesn't really work. First of all, most businesses will still charge the Canadian price, and offer an exchange rate on American bills. And that rate can fluctuate quicker than prices, which means you're using a foreign currency to save pennies, if anything. Likewise, crossing the border to shop isn't going to do that much good unless you like the cheap wares of duty-free shops.

The only real way to put on the pressure is to not buy luxury goods (that is, anything you don't need to survive). Forget fancy clothes, expensive books, games that are priced $10-$15 more up here. Don't pump gas – use public transit instead. Only by putting the electrodes to the cojones of big business will we get the prices that we should have.

Eventually, the American recession will come to an end, and our dollar will likely go back to the mid-80 cents range and stabilize there. As it is, we've only been promoted against the US dollar, while comparisons to other world currencies have remained relatively stable. This isn't a Canada-is-number-one thing (although some of the increase is from increased consumption of Canadian goods by other nations) and when the US finally restores itself in another five or so years (if we're all lucky and someone with sense gets the executive branch in the next US election) things will be back to normal.

Until then, we have to fight for our prices, and the only good way to do that is avoid luxuries until they're priced to parity.