March 31, 2026

I was surprised (in a positive way), at the Boating Ontario Regional meeting last Thursday, March 26 when CEO Rick Layzell asked the room how many attendees were looking for techs. The audience was largely marina people and only four or five hands went up. ‘Not very many from the audience of about 70.

Across Canada, there has been a big effort to recruit and train the marine techs we need. I know Quadrant Marine Institute in BC is always doing training and Georgian College has just graduated a solid group of new techs. It looks like we have most of the techs we need, at least in the Barrie, Orillia and Georgia and Bay area. That’s a really good thing because I’m concerned that the chaotic global situation with war in the Middle East, the conflict in Ukraine continuing and now several other conflict areas plus, the deepening energy crisis we are heading into, could hold new boat sales back. But, summer is just once a year and the best thing is to enjoy that special time of year and go boating.

In time past, smart buyers often used their real estate holdings to underpin their line of credit for major purchases like new boats, but now, when the real estate values are flat or declining, that’s not as attractive a strategy.

In the Globe & Mail online of March 28, 2026, Tim Shufelt wrote that real estate is now down by -21% from the housing high watermark four years ago.

He also pointed out that in terms of change in net wealth for the average Canadian household from 2022 to 2026, real estate is now down by -$60,510. while the value of investments has risen by $86,853. In terms of total net worth, average Canadian households are actually up by $29,825 according to the Globe & Mail using information from Statistics Canada.

But Mr. Shufelt points out that home equity and investment wealth are not equal. Home equity is typically slower moving and gives homeowners confidence to borrow and spend knowing they have a concrete financial back stop, at least on paper. Stock market gains don’t inspire the same confidence for good reason. They can vanish at any moment.

Just looking at my own investments over the last four weeks emphasizes that.

I think the best thing our industry can do is to focus on encouraging our customers to go boating and to focus our business efforts to promote repair and maintenance to keep the fleet in the water and active.

I realize that if you’re a boat manufacturer, or a dealership primarily focussed on sales, that advice may not seem very encouraging, but I think we need to be realistic about what we’re facing.

Andy Adams – Editor