In the 1980s Canada had a prime minister call Pierre Trudeau and during his time the dollar went to 92 cents against the American dollar. Canadians made a dollar replica call it the fuddle buck and threaten to kick out the government for its poor response. Now the dollar is at 75 cents for an American dollar and not a word is said. I guess all the sheeple are lining up for the slaughter.
When I was growing up in the UP of Michigan, I don't know what the exchange rate was but it must have been pretty close, because Canadian currency and coins were exchanged as equal to the United States equivalent. It wasn't unusual to get Canadian bills, and even less unusual to get Canadian coins, in change, even from the bank.
I think that this was probably true in many American towns that were close to the Canadia border, and had frequest shoppers from Canada. When I was living in north Idaho, about 30 miles south of the Canadian border crossing, we had grocery shoppers in the local stores all of the time. Usually, the cashiers tried to give us back change in American money, and then they gave the Canadians their change in Canadian money, but if the grocery bill was $50, they paid $50, no matter which form of currency they used.
I can remember getting Canadian change when I lived in Massachusetts, as well. I never see it here, although of course I don't deal with change as much these days, but do recall coming across the random Mexican coin back in the 80s, when cash was more prevalent. I always liked getting the Canadian money, since that's where my grandparents (3/4 of them) came from, so it felt as if it was drawing me back. I haven't paid much attention to the conversion rates lately, since eBay converts for me. The Canadians I see online appear to be happy with their government, so perhaps they have changed the way many Americans have.
Okay, let me contribute my share of the past era called the good old days. When I was born in the 1960s, almost everything in the market was sold by pile like a pile of 5 tomatoes, pile of 6 onions. Even rice was sold in ganta, a cube that is more than 1 liter in capacity. Nothing was weighed except meat. Even fish was sold by the piece or by pile. The exchange rate of the dollar less than 4 pesos although sometime in 1966 it was pegged at 4 pesos to a dollar. Now the exchange rate is 46 pesos to a dollar. Everything is sold by the kilo, meat, fish, fruits an vegetables. Only the coconut and pineapple are sold per piece in the market but in the groceries they are also sold by weight. But in fairness to this present era, we were apartment dwellers then and now we have our own house. Life is still good or should I say better.