CEOs and other business leaders in this National Post/COMPAS study of business executives hold tax policy to be the key to saving the Canadian dollar, not speeches and not foreign policy. As for speeches, they give the Prime Minister a failing grade for the effectiveness of his declarations in defence of the currency along with a grade not much better to the Governor of the Bank of Canada.

Business leaders give the federal government an apparently lower grade for its handling of currency issues, a bare 50% on a report-style 100 point scale, than three months ago, when Ottawa earned a grade of 58%.

Respondents foresee no essential change in the value of the loonie in 60 days or in a year’s time. On the issue of whether the Canada should adopt the American dollar as the currency of exchange, business leaders remain divided as they were three months ago, albeit with a hint of a stronger will to retain the loonie. Paradoxically, the proportion favouring continued life for the Canadian dollar might be growing even as confidence in the federal government’s handling of currency issues may be slipping.

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