I contacted my Pany vendor today, here in Montreal, and he told me that Panasonic up'ed the price of the HMC150 by $400CDN approximately on April 1st. Damn! Is the Canadian dollar that bad these days? Or is this some sort of joke... because of the timing, it sure sounds like it.

Yup, it's happened across the country. And it seems like the other manufacturers are going to follow suit. Buy now if you can.

how is it possible that in this economy they are RAISING prices?

Because they are still selling cams! And the increase is also relative to the Yen, not necessarily the US dollar.

just got off the phone w/ panny the rep said he's unaware of price increase.