^ Ever since the oil boom in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Newfoundland and Nova Scotia, our economy has been de-linking from the ill always be more than one market for it. If Americans aren't thirsty enougUS slowly but surely. The thing about oil is that there wh for our oil, there's always China or India. Unfortunately, ignorant Americans like yourself haven't caught up to that reality. We aren't USA junior anymore. That's the reason we sat out the last recession (the one in 2000 in the US). And the resource sector is a big part of why we are pulling out of this one fairly quickly. This short Wiki article explains our situation in the early 2000s recession:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_2000s_recession#Canada
As for your slag at our institutions.... the Bank of Canada is reliable and apolitical not like institutions in the US. If it says Canada is pulling out of a recession, we Canadians tend to believe it. But there are other signs as well. Housing sales are up sharply in many cities. Home prices and housing starts are rising and some industrial sectors are coming back to life as well.
And after oil, the rest of our economy is starting to focus on these emerging markets as well. You maybe our biggest trade partner today. But increasingly our most valuable exports go elsewhere. And in time so will most of our trade. Our leaders have realized for a while that hitching our wagon to a falling star is not a good idea.
And lastly your jibe at the dollar. I seemed to recall last summer when the 1 CAD was worth 1.35 USD. Even now during this recession we are at about 1 CAD = 0.90 USD....and there's still a lot of establishments in the northern US and in places like Florida that will give Canadians a 10% discount and accept the dollar on par....guess they are just that desperate for business. The days of 1 CAD being equal 50-65 cents US are long gone and are never coming back. The fiscal irresponsibility of successive US governments (even Obama won't do that much better on this front) will ensure that. Even by percentage of GDP, our government will spend less on its 5 year deficit than merely the next 2 years of deficit in the US. And that's coming from a lower debt-GDP ratio. On top of all that, Canadians tend to vote out governments that don't balance the books. You can be sure that that it will be an election issue if the economy improves and the books aren't balanced. There is no such hope for you in the US.
I won't brag too much about the fact that we were the only country in the developed world not to lose a financial institution to the recent turmoil, or the fact that we don't have pension (and we have a more generous pension plan) or health care liabilities going into the future. Let's just agree that the fundamentals are sufficiently different that we don't always follow the same economic path.