Short term savings lead to long term economic blindness

Iwas at some friends house last night for a dinner party when the topic of discussion came to our Canadian dollar. This friend of mine was telling me about how much money he had saved by buying some things across the border on a shopping trip he and his family had taken a couple of weeks ago and how it was so great the our dollar was worth so much in the U.S. Don't people realize that our Canadian economy is in some trouble, even if the western provinces are doing well and will continue to do so as long as oil prices are hight, but the rest of us out east are suffering. Ontario and Quebec are manufacturing based economies and most of our manufactured good head south for American consumption and we all know they are having a hard time with the combination of bad sub-prime mortgage paper and slumping housing prices affecting consumer confidence. The economic crisis that our U.S. neighbors are going through at the moment, will move north soon enough if we aren't careful about how Canadians spend their money. We have to keep our dollars in Canada to keep both our little and large retailers doing well because if they are doing well we all do well. People seem to think that if they buy at places like Wall-Mart, Canadian Tire or Future Shope to name a few, that their money just goes into a corporate fat cat's pocket never to be seen again. But what people forget is that all these stores have employees that live in our communities and that the retail stores they occupy generate tax revenue for our cities and towns who in these time of federal and provincial transfer payment cut backs need all the help they can get. All this to say that we live in communities and it is our responsibilities to keep our communities healthy, because if we keep them healthy then our society will remain healthy and that is good for all of us. So why not go and buy something for the mom & pops store down the lane today, I know they will appreciate it.