June 17, 2025

You are welcome to picture me falling on my sword after I explain that the very interesting story we featured last week about tariffs hitting outboard motors from Japan and other Pacific Rim countries, applied to the United States – not Canada. Canada has no tariffs on outboard motors. The story was from BoatTEST.com where we have a cooperative publishing relationship and we felt the article was very interesting and well-written. So much so, that we are running a second follow-up story from BoatTEST.com in this week’s edition of Boating Industry Canada News Week Digest, but again, that too is a story about the U.S. market – not Canada.

So far, our Canadian market is not subject to tariffs and as you are reading this June 17 edition of News Week Digest, a group of Canadian marine industry professionals are heading for the NMMA Canada ‘Day on the Hill’ lobby event in Ottawa to again try and get the revenue-negative, job-killing luxury tax repealed.

It was Suzuki who emailed me about the fact that Canadian outboard motors were not being tariffed and Mercury, Yamaha and Honda all confirmed that. My apologies for not emphasizing that very important detail.

Mercury also pointed out that under the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement, (CUSMA), goods that originate in the United States and meet CUSMA’s rules of origin are generally eligible for tariff-free entry into Canada. That’s an important detail. It seems that the terms of that agreement are holding.

As things feel like they are settling down, I suspect that people will adjust to the current environment and will get back to doing what they have been planning. Although I’m still guessing that travel to the United States this summer will be way down and that Canada’s vacation areas will see strong business. That should include boat sales.

Last weekend I attended the Orillia Boat Show and spoke to many industry people there. The in-water show looked very good. The venue is lovely with nice new docks in a sheltered location and with lots of free parking and no admission charge. Dealers I spoke to, told me about deals that they were getting on boats of all types and sizes, including new non-current and brand new models as well as used boats. In the case of larger boats, there seems to be a brisk market for nice brokerage boats priced under a quarter of a million.

As I’m writing this, the G7 is taking place in Canada at Kananaskis and our new Prime Minister Mark Carney, with mere months of Prime Ministerial experience, is hosting a remarkably big group of world leaders including Donald Trump. I will be watching with great interest to learn more about those meetings as our marine industry group gathers at the NMMA Canada Day on the Hill starting Tuesday night. There’s a lot going on and as you know, the Devil is in the details!

Andy Adams – Editor