Saskatoon business hopes Canadian dollar stays low

SASKATOON – The recent slide of the Canadian dollar is turning into big business for a Saskatoon-based TV listing provider who says roughly 70 per cent of his sales are to the United States of America.

“If I get a ten thousand dollar cheque from the United States it turns into fourteen thousand dollars,” said Dale Lemke, founder and CEO of Display Systems International (DSI).

DSI products are in roughly 1,300 locations across North America, according to Lemke. The product is found mainly in hotels, as a non-interactive scrolling service that allows customers to see what is on television. The current 70 cent Canadian dollar is allowing DSI to expand, said Lemke.

“Now we have additional dollars that we can hire more people with, we can go to more trade shows, we can try and do more marketing,” said Lemke.

READ MORE: Canadian dollar closes below 70 cents U.S. for first time in nearly 13 years

However, not everyone is feeling the same boom that DSI is experiencing. There are always winners and losers when an economy swings one way or another, according to economist Joel Bruneau.

“It’s almost a truism,” said Bruneau, who teaches economics at the University of Saskatchewan.

Business owners in sectors that are driven by more than just price are likely not benefiting from the low dollar, said Bruneau.

“If you think of oil, it’s driven by these oil prices, it’s also driven by capacity to get oil into the refinery and so there’s competition on that,” said Bruneau.

“My sense is that, services and manufacturing are little bit more sensitive to exchange rates.”

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Where those rates go, is still anyone’s guess. Some people expect the Canadian dollar to drop below 60 cents, while others, like Bruneau, are a little more cautious.

“Forecasting exchange rates, if we can do that well, we’d make a lot of money at it,” said Bruneau.

“Nobody’s making a lot of money at this stuff, it’s difficult.”