Feb 11, 2025

In the Editor’s Message last week, crafted by our editorial team, we wrote about “Uncertainty being a catalyst for change” and how the threat of potential tariffs got us thinking about critical areas for improvement and opportunities for growth. The threat of tariffs has been pushed down the road by a week already and probably we will get a reprieve for another three weeks but the threat has not gone away. In fact, it seems like this will be hanging over our Canadian heads indefinitely.

Our column last week said that the situation this presents really should make us look inward to more domestic trade reform. Canada needs to address its internal trade barriers to foster a more robust national economy. It is crucial to dismantle archaic provincial trade restrictions that hinder the free flow of goods and services within our own country. From what I have been reading over the past week, many Canadians are seeing the same thing. I consider that to be good news.

Even some of our top politicians and leaders are saying this. I’m always a very positive person and these conversations make me hopeful that we have finally been pushed onto the right track, but then reality takes over and I realize that this sort of change and reform won’t happen overnight, or even this month.

It will take a new election and a significant change in leadership to make these changes. Streamlining and simplifying regulations, reducing bureaucracy and perhaps most importantly, developing new international markets for Canadian products, will take a very long time.

Examples of the trade barriers are provincial-level professional certifications where a medical professional will be required to re-certify if they wanted to relocate their practice to a new province. Money is a huge hurdle. Provincial governments bring in major revenue through provincially-levied taxes on products like alcohol. These barriers have been set up over decades to protect industries or revenue streams. In the current free trade environment, these will be very hard to dismantle.

Donald Trump has just announced new tariffs on steel and aluminum probably designed to take over Canada through economic pressure. Reading American news outlets, I’m hearing that these moves are volleys of economic aggression against Canada and other countries as part of the Project 2025 plan to expand America’s resources and economic influence.

I believe that tariffs could be terrible for the new boat market but Canada still has a core of domestic boat builders offering excellent products. American-made engines might rise in cost but certainly, some buyers will still buy.

So, last week we asked, why not revitalize Canada’s boat building industry? We have skilled people in aluminum fabrication, experts in composites and talented designers and naval architects. We should focus on our own boat builders. It makes sense.

But we still have the short term to consider. Tariffs on steel and aluminum are just being declared. More tariffs could hit us in three weeks. The fastest pivot we can make is to promote our service departments. Explain to your customers about what is going on and how valuable their current boat is. Start now to prospect and boost your service and upgrade sales.

Whatever happens with the Trump tariffs, the whole industry benefits when sales in service are strong.

This week I’m off to the Miami Boat Show and with some high-level opportunities to learn more about the trade situation and how it could impact the industry, there and here. It should be a whirlwind of information this year!

Andy Adams – Editor