April 7, 2026

On Thursday, March 26, I attended the Boating Ontario Regional meeting in Orillia. It was the last of the eight meetings the association held this spring. I took lots of notes because I was planning to write about this. But, I didn’t need to take any notes at all as it turned out. A few days after the meeting, the Boating Ontario staff sent out the entire presentation deck to all who attended. It’s a valuable list of valuable resources.

The list of accomplishments that the Boating Ontario team delivered, certainly establishes the value of membership. As the Boating Ontario Association, and also with the Canadian Marine Retailers Association, this team has entrée to the government at some of the highest levels. Getting your own copy of all the presentation slides made it easy to go back and focus on any issues or programs that are particularly important to your business.

The day started off with the list of Conversations starting with the Economic and Market realities, a fulsome review of the Member Programs, The Clean Marine Program, discussion of Membership and Grants, the association’s Marketing programs, Government Actions and more.

Lunch and networking time is one of the most valuable elements because everyone had an opportunity to connect with friends and business associates to talk about the morning sessions.

Some of the topics that I felt were among the most important and timely were to remind people what the Mission Statement is for Boating Ontario and their Five Guiding Principles. They reviewed the members of the Board of Directors, the Board of Advisors and the Staff.

There was a Summary of the Realities our industry is facing, including the decline in consumer confidence, currently down -8%, the sad graph showing rising mortgage delinquencies, (even in the face of declining interest rates) and another big consumer issue; inflation in the price of food.

Of the G7 countries, food inflation is far worse in Canada at +7.3%, then Japan is at +3.9%, the UK at +3.6%, the USA at +2.9% and Germany, Italy and France all less affected. It is Canada that is really suffering and those prices hit all our customers.

On the good news side of things we learned more about the purchase of the Toronto International Boat Show, a development that the association sees as very positive. Boating Ontario has a 20-year commercial agreement which provides a number of important benefits to the association and stability for the show in the long-term.

The Economic Impact of Boating on the economy shows the importance of the industry. Employment is estimated at 80,500 with Labour Income of $5.4 billion and contributing $4.6 billion in taxes. We got a 10-year graph of new and used boat sales and far more data that members would find useful in business planning and other management measures.

There was a detailed presentation on the various Boating Ontario resources which are really focussed on the critical aspects of day-to-day operation.

Another very encouraging piece of news was the steady rise in funding for our young techs through the Marine Worx Development fund. Other great programs like Clean Marine, social media and marketing resources, government relations, the Canadian Marine Retailers Association, as well as news from Transport Canada on subjects like the vessel operation restriction regulations, mandatory PFD wear, water lot leases and other services were all covered in detail.

Lunch was supplied by the event sponsors, and the networking opportunity over lunch gave everybody a little one-on-one time before we got into the final presentations.

Parks Canada presented plans for the Trent-Severn Waterway and other canal systems this summer including the Canada Strong Free Lockage. In closing, Rick Layzell summarized the information from all of the regional meetings this year and gave people an opportunity to raise any concerns or issues.

These are always excellent sections and I know that most of our readers are aware of the value their regional associations bring to their businesses, but not everyone made it to the meetings, even with eight different locations. 

So, I applaud Boating Ontario for doing a great job and for sharing their presentation deck. That gives attendees a fast way to go back and check for member resources they might suddenly need this summer.

All of the industry associations across Canada bring value to their members and let’s not forget about the NMMA either. I hope you support your association and that you engage with it, at least occasionally. We are an industry of relatively small businesses and having strong associations really has value when the going gets tough.

As we start into April and better weather, we wish you all a great season in 2026.

Andy Adams, Editor