Canada’s currency weakened against its U.S. counterpart as commodities dropped and Finance Minister Jim Flaherty prepared to deliver to Parliament his package of fiscal measures for economic revival. “Gold is off a little, and oil is a bit softer,” said Steven Butler director of foreign-exchange trading in Toronto at Scotia Capital, a unit of Canada’s third-largest bank. “And of course the uncertainty surrounding tonight’s budget might hold the Canadian dollar back today.” The Canadian currency declined 0.6 percent to C$1.2295 per U.S. dollar at 7:51 a.m. in Toronto, from C$1.2226 yesterday. It advanced 3.6 percent in the four sessions before today. One Canadian dollar buys 81.33 U.S. cents. Flaherty, who delivers the budget at 4 p.m. New York time, will announce the first deficit in more than a decade. The loonie, as Canada’s dollar is known, declined against all of the 16 most actively traded currencies. The “uncertainty over the budget” is causing the pessimism surrounding the Canadian dollar, said Firas Askari, head currency trader in Toronto at BMO Nesbitt Burns, a unit of Bank of Montreal. “And don’t forget, the Canadian dollar had outperformed of late. It’s playing a bit of catch up.” Canada’s currency will drop to C$1.25 against the U.S. dollar by the end of this quarter before rebounding to C$1.20 by the end of the year, according to the median forecast in a Bloomberg News survey of 42 economists. Crude oil for March delivery fell as much as $1.33 to $44.40 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Crude accounts for a tenth of Canada’s exports. Gold fell for the first time in four days, touching $892.95 an ounce.

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