Late last year, as our the loonie became more valuable than the American dollar, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty wanted to put pressure on Canadian retailers to end the price differential on identical products sold in Canada and the U.S. He had convened a meeting of retailers at his Ottawa offices shortly after returning from some international finance meetings in Washington, D.C.
To make his point about price differentials, Flaherty (left) went out and bought the most recent Harry Potter in Washington and then bought it again in Ottawa. He says he paid more for the book in Canada (though several retailers subsequently said that, had the Minister shopped around, he would have found the book in Canada for the same price or less than he paid for it in the U.S.).
Now, as it turns out, the Canadian publisher of the Harry Potter series, Raincoast Books of Vancouver, says it is suspending its publishing program because of the loonie's rise:
Even with Harry Potter, and other titles that have won or been short-listed for every major literary prize in Canada, [Jamie Broadhurst, vice-president of marketing at Raincoast] said the company's 13-year-old publishing division has remained unprofitable.
“This is all about the dollar,” Broadhurst said. “There has been endless discussion in the Canadian media about what has been coined 'book rage' since the dollar went to par in September and Canadian consumers, rightly so, were demanding lower book prices.”