The Canadian dollar today reached up to a new all time high while it was trading today.  It was over $1.10 for a bit today before it crept back a bit.  The new heights that the dollar has been reaching are very surprising to many people.  There are fears that the high dollar will cause a slowdown in the economy as less goods will be exported to the United States and more people are travelling to the United States for shopping.  Right now it continuously appears that Canadian retail is ripping off the consumer.  There has been some progress recently with stores like Walmart and Zellers bringing American prices across the border. But now with the dollar trading past parity it makes me wonder, why are they stopping with just matching some American prices and not beating them?  I suppose it takes some time to work through their inventories and renegotiate contracts with the distributors.  Whatever the case, I just hope we aren’t stuck with higher prices in Canada, and the inability to sell our goods to the United States since thats just an all around negative for Canada.