Iran leader dismisses US currency

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has suggested an end to the trading of oil in US dollars, calling the currency "a worthless piece of paper".

The call came at the end of a rare Opec summit, and was opposed by US ally Saudi Arabia.

The Iranian president had wanted to include the attack on the dollar in the summit's closing statement.

The communique made little mention of the dollar, however, focusing instead on energy security and the environment.

The summit in Saudi Arabia was only Opec's third in 47 years.

During the talks, Opec members revealed differences about the future direction of the exporters' group.

But Opec leaders ended with a pledge to provide the world with reliable supplies of oil.

Unfair trade?

Speaking after the end of the summit, Mr Ahmadinejad said all leaders at the meeting were unhappy with recent falls in the value of the dollar.

The dollar has weakened considerably against the euro and other currencies in the past 12 months.

Its decline has affected the revenues of Opec members because most of them price and sell their oil exports in the US currency.

Mr Ahmadinejad said that all Opec countries had showed interest in converting their cash reserves into other currencies.

"They [the US] get our oil and give us a worthless piece of paper," he told reporters.

But Saudi officials were against including any such language in the declaration. One is reported to have warned that it could add to the pressure on the dollar.

However, in the communique Opec did make a reference to the debate, by committing itself to studying "ways and means of enhancing financial co-operation".

Iran's oil minister said that this would allow the formation of a committee to study the dollar's affect on oil prices and investigate the possibility of alternative trading currencies.

Political agenda

The summit was also marked by divisions over the role of Opec in the world oil market.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and his Ecuadorean counterpart, Rafael Correa, whose country rejoined Opec at the summit, both argued for a more political agenda for the group, but ran into opposition from US ally Saudi Arabia.

King Abdullah, the head of state of the host nation, Saudi Arabia said: "Those who want Opec to take advantage of its position are forgetting that Opec has always acted moderately and wisely.

"Oil shouldn't be a tool for conflict, it should be a tool for development."

President Chavez had opened the meeting with a warning that oil prices could double if the US attacked Iran.

Oil has been hitting record peaks of well over $90 a barrel as markets believe the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries will not boost production, despite calls from oil-consuming countries such as the US to do so.

Venezuela's president said the price of crude could reach $150 or even $200 a barrel.

Canadians shopping in U.S. pushing border resources to limit

They're filling a border refugee processing centre to capacity on the weekends, but these weary travellers entering Canada from the U.S. aren't seeking asylum — they're cross-border shoppers lured south by the loonie's record-breaking showing against the Yankee greenback. Bargain-hungry shoppers — often arriving by the busload — have been choking key border crossings across the country on weekends, straining resources at the border and forcing officials to scramble to find staff and facilities to process their purchases. In Ontario, a building intended to handle refugee claimants has been pressed into service to deal with the sheer volume of shoppers. All across Canada, the story is much the same as Canadians cash in on a dollar that's been worth more than its U.S. counterpart for weeks. Residents of St. Stephen, N.B., endured a two-kilometre lineup of vehicles snaking through their small town bordering on Maine during the Remembrance Day weekend. At the same time, the wait at the Pacific Highway border crossing in Surrey, B.C., was about four hours long. In Ontario, the crush of cross-border shoppers has led to extraordinary measures. Last Sunday, 50 chartered shopping buses carrying up to 55 people each began arriving after 4 p.m. at the Fort Erie crossing from Buffalo. With no personal exemptions on same-day travel purchases, hundreds of shoppers had to be processed for tax and possible duty payments. "We had to park the buses in our commercial area so that we could orderly process them, [and] we did open up extra facilities," said Jean D'Amelio-Swyer, a spokeswoman for Canada Border Services Agency. "We opened up a refugee processing centre and we had some extra cashier capability."
Problem is, there's only so many people you can put in those buildings at the same time, said D'Amelio-Swyer. As a result, after waiting an hour to cross the border, same-day shoppers then faced a two- to three-hour wait for customs agents to process their goods. "At minimum, these people have to pay PST and GST on their goods," she said. "There may be some duties applicable if the goods are not made in North America." Border agents were already working with stretched resources before the dollar's historic climb and many are now working overtime to handle the current crush, said Ron Moran, president of the Customs Excise Union. "It's still relatively early as a phenomenon, but we're already hearing that they won't be able to hold that line indefinitely," Moran said.
Early stages of bargaining
The country's 10,000 customs and immigration offers have been without a contract since June 21 and are in the early stages of collective bargaining, but no job action is planned, he added. "If the union were to start exercising pressure, it would get disastrous pretty quickly, [but] we're not suggesting that we're at that stage," he said. On a relatively calm Tuesday afternoon at the Queenston-Lewiston border crossing near Niagara Falls, Ont., shoppers that passed through customs after a mere 30-minute border wait weren't all that impressed with the goods to be had south of the border. "There wasn't any really huge deals. There was some on video games, which I primarily came for. It was mostly toys and stuff for Christmas," said Gina Robinson, 38, who made the two-hour trip from her home in Aurora, Ont. "I probably wouldn't be in a huge hurry to come back because it's the whole headache with the border. We were panicking, looking at our watches thinking, 'What time are we leaving, what time are we leaving?' " How high would the dollar have to go to lure Robinson back to the malls in New York state?
Deal on turkey
"A buck-fifty. In my perfect world, yeah. Otherwise, no." All the bargain hunting amounted to little more than Thanksgiving turkey for another Ontario woman who made the trek. "I feel the prices were not that good, about the same as in Canada," said Pauline Rochon of Lowbanks, Ont. — about an hour's drive from the Queenston bridge. When asked if she managed to ferret out any deals, Rochon replied: "Only on turkey at 29 cents a pound." The loonie's strong performance has turned border traffic flow in Surrey, B.C., somewhat on its head, said Len Dasilva of the West Coast Duty Free shop. "The busiest use to be on a Sunday when U.S. traffic was heading back. It's switched to Friday and Saturday now," said Dasilva.
'Buying habits are different'
"We lost the U.S. traffic and made it up with Canadians somewhat, but the buying habits are different. Canadians tend not to spend as much per head as Americans." The same-day shopping phenomenon has also struck the Prairies, saddling border agents there with the same crush witnessed in Ontario and elsewhere. "We used to get the 48-hour exemption, the weekend traveller. But now we're seeing more and more same-day travellers," said Loretta Nyhus, Canadian Border Services Agency spokeswoman for the Prairie region. The limited facilities and staff to process those travellers "reduces our capacity to open up additional lanes because there's only so much capacity within the office." Anyone who's still eager to spend their loonies in the U.S. might want to do it on a weekday to avoid spending several hours in a refugee processing centre with busloads of shoppers, D'Amelio-Swyer said. "Anyone who's got the opportunity to plan a shopping trip on a weekday, that might be a better alternative because right now on weekdays we're not having this huge surge of buses coming back."

This says it all, even Santa goes to the USA to shop

Buyer Beware: U.S. lemons found on Canadian car lots

Last Updated: Tuesday, November 13, 2007 | 12:02 PM ET

CBC News

Hundreds of vehicles labelled lemons in the United States are turning up at Canadian dealerships where some unsuspecting customers are being offered defective cars, CBC News has learned.

In one instance, a Kia minivan that originally sold for $28,100 US in Florida was sold at auction to a Winnipeg dealer for $13,100 US after it was declared a lemon. It ended up on a Winnipeg car lot where it was recently found on sale for $24,980 and with no warnings about its history.

Unlike the U.S., Canada has no lemon laws despite attempts to establish them in British Columbia, Manitoba and Ontario.

Eric Schrepel, who bought the 2006 Kia minivan brand new from a Florida dealership, said the battery died four times in less than 18 months and no mechanic could solve the problem.

"There was some sort of short that they just couldn't locate in the car. Kia makes a very good car. But I think this one is just literally — it was just a lemon," Schrepel told CBC News.

The manufacturer followed the letter of the law in Florida and bought back the van. It later resold it to the Winnipeg dealer.

A salesman at the Winnipeg car lot would only say the van had been designated a lemon in Florida after being asked several times. Even then he guaranteed the van would perform properly.

While the definition of lemon varies by state, it most often means that despite several trips to the dealer's service department, a vehicle continues to have a serious problem.

Once a vehicle is declared a lemon, the manufacturer has to buy it back. But there's nothing to stop the manufacturer from reselling it.

While all 50 states have lemon laws, only 19 require the title of a car declared a lemon to carry a warning. When a dealer sells a lemon out-of-state, the lemon designation is often not carried over.

A CBC News investigation found that between May 1, 2006, and Nov. 5, 2007, 852 American lemons were imported into Canada, with more than 110 of those crossing the border since the Canadian dollar reached parity.

Have we topped out - Loonie loses almost three cents against U.S. dollar

Last Updated: Monday, November 12, 2007 | 4:47 PM ET

CBC News

The Canadian dollar continued to retreat Monday from the record highs that it reached last week against the U.S. dollar.

The loonie slipped 2.98 cents US to $1.0309 US in foreign exchange trading. There was no official close from the Bank of Canada as it was closed Monday for the Remembrance Day

The loonie has dropped more than 7 cents from its high of $1.1030 US that was reached on Nov. 7.

The Canadian dollar lost ground as the U.S. dollar found some footing against the euro and the U.K. pound.

The euro bought $1.4554 US, down more than a cent from the all-time high of $1.4752 reached Friday.

The British pound retreated to $2.0595 US from $2.0909 US. The pound has been trading recently at highs against the U.S. dollar not seen since the early 1980s.

Market watchers said the loonie is cooling after a rapid rise in recent months. The dollar just regained parity with the U.S. greenback in September.

"It's only natural when things start to overshoot and the pace of appreciation has been this fast to see corrections like this," said Mohammed Ali, vice-president at TD Securities in London.

Ali said a buildup in pressure for a December interest rate cut by the U.S. Federal Reserve will eventually help curb the loonie's recent slide.