Business leaders and politicians may wax on about Canada's knowledge-based industries, but international currency traders still see us primarily as natural-resource producers, and that probably spells trouble for the Canadian dollar for years to come.
That is one conclusion of a recent study of the dollar by TD Economics. As one dramatic chart in the study showed, the Canadian dollar has closely tracked non-energy commodity prices down over the past decade. Those prices include minerals such as nickel and copper, as well as lumber and other forest products.
Given that the resource sector accounts for just 14% of Canada's GDP, are currency traders' perceptions fair? Unfortunately, according to TD Bank Financial Group chief economist Don Drummond, the answer is yes. Resources account for about half of Canada's export earnings. "They loom huge in our trade balance," he says.
Why haven't buoyant oil and gas prices in recent years helped the dollar? Because Canada both imports and exports petroleum, says Drummond, so the net impact on the trade balance is small.
TD predicts that resources will still account for roughly the same proportion of Canada's GDP in 2010, so non-energy commodity prices will continue to have a big impact on the trade balance. "That's discouraging," says Drummond, "because real commodity prices have been in a 100-year secular decline."
The upshot: The bank doesn't expect the dollar to climb above 68 cents (U.S.) until at least 2003.