November 10, 2026

Like many of our readers, I’m anxiously anticipating the (hopefully positive) winds of change that blew in last week from several directions. Obviously, the U.S. mid-term elections brought a wave of change to many states, and at many levels from the Senate to a wide range of lower profile positions that more deeply cement a turn to the Democrats. We hope this will be positive for Canada and Canadian businesses, but it may take quite a bit of time to really see the effects.

Closer to home, we applaud Boating B.C. for the Association of Marina Industries (AMI)  Marina Industry Wage Rate Survey. Boating B.C. members are invited to participate in a comprehensive compensation study designed to help better understand industry wage trends and remain competitive in attracting and retaining skilled employees. This could give many marine industry businesses valuable information on which to base their future decisions.

The survey collects compensation information for a wide range of positions, including common marina operations and management roles, as well as specialized technical positions such as marine electricians, marine service technicians, and other skilled trades.

The goal is to generate a dedicated Boating B.C. Wage Rate Report that providesvaluable compensation benchmarks specific to their regional marine industry. That is great!

The personal wealth and financial security of our customers is critically important to our future and last Wednesday, following the U.S. elections, the stock market took off on positive sentiment. The next day we saw one of the worst days on the market in years, so we are too early to read the tea leaves clearly.

Softening that a bit, an article in the Globe & Mail gave an encouraging message saying that markets rose 20 times out of 20 after the mid-terms. There seems to be a period of certainty that follows the elections. I’m hoping our customers will feel better about their retirement and spending plans in 2027.

On the other hand, I find it difficult to separate the news out because we sometimes get bad news that comes from past events and that may not be predictive of the future. For example, recently Beneteau reported disappointing results but those were from the previous year. The same applies to recent financial reports from Marine Max.

You already know what happened for your business last year. It’s next year that we care about.

I’ll be heading to the Boating Ontario Conference starting November 30th. I always learn a lot there and it’s great to see so many people there.

Stop me and say hello if you are there too.

Andy Adams – Editor