This still bothers me

Apparently the Canadian dollar is valuable as it has been in almost four years.

What I don't understand about this is that I don't seem to have the increased purchasing power that I would have expected to go along with a high dollar. I don't seem to be getting more for each dollar. Particularly grating are lower prices for books in the US. Even though Canada has a much more valuable dollar than we did in years past, the gap in prices seems to have remained stable. How is this possible?

And, at least in my experience, prices of general household goods seem to still be cheaper in the US. Even if we accept that things like import duties and taxation will bump up the price a little, shouldn't the price gap have closed at least a little bit?

And shouldn't more people be asking these questions? Are we just so used to paying higher prices in Canada that now that we have a more valuable dollar we haven't thought about the benefits that should be coming from a more valuable dollar?