Thank you.
It's an important question. That's absolutely right. Let me start by acknowledging that because we are blessed, as you said, with immense natural resources, the prices of our energy exports and our base metals and other agricultural exports are all important factors, but they are only one set of factors that determine over time the fundamental value of the currency. If you look, for example, on the commodity side, if you look at the oil side, the correlation between the level of the Canadian dollar and the oil price has moved quite a bit over the course of the last ten years, from 0.8 or 0.9 to 0.5 if you measure on a WTI basis right now. That's the first point.
The second point I'd like to underscore is on something we highlighted in detail in the report. That is, that what matters a lot is what Canadian exporters actually receive for their oil. And as Brian and you know, we're currently in the situation, in part because of infrastructure challenges, where the price for western Canadian select is actually substantially discounted from the price you normally hear in the morning when you turn on the radio and they say the price of oil has gone up to, let's say, $120 or thereabouts. They're normally quoting the price of oil in the North Sea, because that's the most liquid internationally traded currency. We've reached a level in the last couple of weeks where our producers have been receiving $40 less than that. So even within oil itself there's a big difference. It's not as simplistic as analysts sometimes try to represent it as being. That's the second point.
I think your broader question is about the other drivers of currencies. I think we should all acknowledge that at any given moment, who knows? Currencies are driven by a range of things as the markets move, but in the fullness of time, the sustainability of the fiscal position is a determinant. The strength of the financial system is a determinant. The trade balance—the current account balance and the sustainability of that—is a determinant. Issues around risk—whether they relate to domestic debt, household debt—can be determinants from time to time, and the underlying competitive position of an economy is a determinant as well.
There are other factors, but if you run through that list, we score pretty well on most of them. But we do have issues. We have issues in terms of competitiveness. Our unit labour costs have gone up 65% against the United States, 80% against all our trading partners since 2000, so that's a real issue. Our current account is in a fairly large deficit at the moment. We have issues around household debt, as we've discussed. So our balance sheet is strong, but it's not perfect, and we always have things to work on.
Of course all of this is determined in an environment of relatives. The Canadian dollar moves in part because of what happens here, but also what happens elsewhere. Clearly, as with virtually every currency in the world but even more so for us, what really matters externally is what's happening in the United States and the relative performance there.