Nick Bontis gets the deal of a lifetime: He buys a brand-new 2007 Lincoln Navigator which has an MSRP of $80,000 CDN for $46,200 US — the equivalent, this week at least, of $45,000.
OTTAWA — The federal government agency responsible for tracking cars and trucks imported into Canada from the U.S. is bracing itself for a record-setting year as tens of thousands of Canadians head south to buy vehicles for thousands of dollars less than they could get them in Canada.
The Registrar of Imported Vehicles, an agency of Transport Canada, is on track to deal with as many 160,000 vehicles this year, which will be bought by Canadian consumers from U.S vendors. As recently as 2002, the Registrar was averaging about 38,000 vehicles a year.
In 2006, as the loonie started its climb versus the U.S. greenback, the Registrar recorded 113,000 transactions. This year, it's on track to record between 150,000 and 160,000 transactions.
“Our numbers just went through the roof,” said Gary Moriarty, the Deputy Registrar of Imported Vehicles. “We are now receiving 5,000 phone calls a day.”
Before the loonie surged against the greenback, calls to the Registry were averaging about 900 a day, said Moriarty. Earlier today, one U.S. dollar was worth 97.63 cents Canadian. Or, put another way, one Canadian dollar was worth 1.024 U.S. dollars.
'Pretty sweet deal'
Nick Bontis, an associate professor at the DeGroote Business School at McMaster University in Hamilton, is one of the thousands of Canadians who have found significant savings south of the border. This week, Bontis took delivery of a 2007 Lincoln Navigator, a luxury sports utility vehicle, that has a manufacturers' list price in Canada of about $75,000. After winning an online auction, Bontis paid a New Jersey dealer $46,200 U.S., the equivalent of about $45,000 Canadian.