While much of America was fiddling with its fantasy football rosters, the Canadian dollar yesterday achieved parity with its U.S. counterpart for the first time in more than 30 years, an equilibrium that signals a weakening American currency, a strengthening Canadian economy and, perhaps, an end to all of those "Canadian peso" jokes.

For sure, a fistful of U.S. dollar bills won't go as far as it used to in the Niagara Falls gentlemen's clubs, but let's forget about the trade implications for a moment. From an aesthetic standpoint, this is a disaster. Their colorful bills look as if they might have been finger-painted by schoolchildren, and their dollar coin is called the loonie, because of the bird -- the common loon -- on the back of it.

It's the monetary equivalent of Britney Spears: How can you expect us to take you seriously when you look the way you do?

The parity, achieved at 10:58 a.m., also dealt a glancing blow to the collective American ego, and likewise to the perception that Canada, with its clean streets and universal health insurance -- except for dental coverage -- is America's goody-two-shoes pipsqueak of a little brother.

But Canadians cheered the news, tired of having to exchange for American cash whenever they want to vacation in the Bahamas, or even have a beer in Buffalo, N.Y.

"We have an inferiority complex," said Bret Evans, managing editor of Canadian Coin News and thus the country's top expert on both coins and Canadians. "It's our sense of trying to knock you guys off your peg," he said, before straying off topic and criticizing our sissy American beer, which was, frankly, unwarranted. ("It's like training beer.")

While the average American could go for years without pondering currency exchange rates, Canadians were acutely aware of the Canadian-U.S. exchange and the run-up to yesterday, as the Canadian dollar crept closer to the U.S. standard.

"It's on the news every day," Mr. Evans said.

"There was cheering on the market floor" yesterday. The Canadian dollar rose to $1.0008 before dipping to 99.82 U.S. cents.

The trigger for yesterday's event was the Federal Reserve's half-point cut in U.S. interest rates earlier in the week, which sought to ease the American mortgage crunch and reduce borrowing costs. But it had the twin effect of weakening our dollar against other world currencies.

Tumbling on the euro, OK, we've grown accustomed to that.

But the loonie? Really? For the first time since November 1976, one American dollar buys about one Canadian dollar on the currency investment markets. That makes it more expensive for those Americans who want to stay a weekend in Toronto or buy a barrel of crude oil in Alberta.

"In Canada, you're not getting a hell of a deal on the buck anymore," said Daniel Gosling, a vice president with the Canadian Numismatic Association (for rare coin collectors).

Just five years ago, the loonie had hit an all-time low of 61.79 cents on the American dollar. Around that time, Mr. Gosling and an American friend from Chicago were at a restaurant in Ottawa. When it came time to split the dinner tab, the friend laid down a single American greenback.

A harmless joke, yes, but don't think that Canada wasn't sore about it.

"In 2002, that almost was the feeling, that we were in a similar camp as Mexico," Mr. Gosling said.

It's been quite a comeback since then, a 62 percent rise in value, fed by western Canada's mining and drilling growth. Along with the growth came the realization that Canadians have been getting wealthier, relative to Americans, over the last five years, and that Canadian-based corporations like Enbridge and Manulife Financial are on the brink of becoming global players.

Now's your chance to rub your prosperity in our face, Canada.

"I was doing the jig in my office," said Guy McLaughlin, a spokesman for SAIT Polytechnic school in Calgary, Alberta. (To the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's knowledge, he said this merely for effect, and was not actually getting jiggy.) "I think there's a certain amount of pride. We sort of measure ourselves against America, to an extent ... I guess you'll have to stop making fun of our loonie."

The analysts who get paid to know such things say that the symbolism of the parity is important to Canada and Canadians, but, as with any shift on the global currency markets, the actual effect is complicated.

For one thing, more Canadian corporations -- not to mention bargain hunters -- will be crossing the border to buy goods in America, since their dollar is now worth as much here.

Young Canadians may stop leaving for better-paying jobs in America, but on the other hand, American companies that had been outsourcing jobs to Canada because of the cheaper labor now might not be inclined to do so.

And then there's tourism, which some Canadian cities depend on more than others.

For Joe American, "what it really does is make travel to Canada more expensive," said Chuck Butler, president of EverBank World Markets group, which trades in currency and metals.

Canada's finance minister, Jim Flaherty, acknowledged the mixed bag in a news conference, and cautioned that the parity was due more to America's decline against all world currencies than to any recent moves by Canada. He also said the rise in value puts pressure on Canadian manufacturers, whose goods are now more expensive in the foreign market.

"Canadian manufacturers have been remarkably resilient and I'm very proud of them and I commend them for adjusting over time. It's always difficult when the changes are relatively sudden like this recent depreciation of the U.S. dollar," he said, according to Reuters Canada.