I found this article dated almost 18 months ago..interesting, eh? however, still does not help one with the " egos in suits" border geeks one has to make their way through in order to access the benefit of the dollar parity. why do those people get into the profession anyways? just a question...
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Loonie predicted to equal U.S. dollar Eric Beauchesne, CanWest News Service
Published: Tuesday, May 02, 2006 Article tools

The dollar will be at par with the U.S. greenback within 18 months, a Canadian bank boldly predicted as the loonie rose to a fresh 28-year high on Tuesday.

"We believe that the stars will align for a Canadian dollar at par with the U.S. dollar . . . by the fall of 2007," National Bank of Canada chief economist Clement Gignac said.

The last time a Canadian dollar was worth the same as the U.S. dollar was in 1976, which was just prior to the election of a separatist government in Quebec, following which the dollar began a long downward slide, greased by weakening commodity prices and rising government deficits and debt.
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here is some trivia for those of us who think trivia is intellectual gold:

The Arch was constructed to commemorate the centennial (1814-1914) of the signing of the Treaty of Ghent ending the war of 1812 between the United States and Great Britain. The Arch’s design was donated by H.W. Corbett of London, England, an internationally known architect. Construction began under an international force of volunteers in 1920. The Arch was officially dedicated on September 6, 1921.
The Treaty of Ghent, signed on December 24, 1814, in Ghent, (Belgium), was the peace treaty that ended the War of 1812 between the United States of America and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.The war was regarded as futile by both sides. The USA had been resoundingly unsuccessful in its invasions of Lower and Upper Canada, while Britain had not made any significant gains (albeit the burning of Washington D.C.) with its retaliatory raids into the USA. Fighting immediately stopped when news of the treaty reached the battlefronts. The U.S. Senate unanimously approved on February 16, 1815 and President James Madison exchanged ratification papers with a British diplomat in Washington on February 17; the treaty was proclaimed on February 18. Eleven days later (March 1) Napoleon escaped from Elba starting the European wars up again, and forcing the British to concentrate on the threat he posed.