June 24, 2025

I have just returned from the 2025 NMMA Canada Day on the Hill event where leaders from our industry pressed the government to address important issues that we face. For many in Canada’s marine industry, the biggest headwind has been the imposition of the Luxury Tax on September 1, 2022. Since then, the industry has lost significant sales revenue and this has resulted in both lost employment for many Canadians in the boat business (particularly those living in rural areas) and significant lost tax revenues for the Government – simply stated, Canadian boat buyers refused to buy boats that were being very heavily taxed – so the Government did not gain Luxury Tax revenues and also lost the GST that would have been paid on big boats before the Luxury Tax was imposed.

During the 2025 Day on the Hill event, June 18 and 19, 2025 in Ottawa, an extensive series of meetings were organized and this year, there was a notable wind shift. Many of the group felt that our presentations detailing lost employment and significant lost tax revenues were really being heard. Previously, the former Prime Minister was believed to have been personally supportive of the Luxury Tax but he has stepped down. The new Prime Minister, Mark Carney is notably a former Bank of Canada Governor, Bank of England Governor and  highly-placed executive with Brookfield. He knows money and would instantly understand the negative impact of the Trudeau-era Luxury Tax.

This doesn’t immediately translate into tax relief for the boat business but it seems clear that the unemployment and the lost tax revenues are likely to be addressed, hopefully in the next budget.

Back in the summer of 2024, Boating Industry Canada News Week Digest received a letter from Neptunus Yachts with a great idea – ask the Government to raise the threshold for the Luxury Tax to a level where it would have little impact. This idea came from their Liberal MP and although it has not happened yet, it has the virtue of being a relatively fast and easy solution that doesn’t require a major change to the tax code.

This idea is still very much alive and was presented again at the 2025 Day on the Hill to the Members of Parliament that the NMMA Canada group met with. Instead of feeling that the idea fell on deaf ears as in the 2024 meetings, I was told that there was a more positive reception this year.

There will be a lot of lobbying by the NMMA Canada, The Canadian Marine Retailers Association and all our regional marine trades organizations in the coming months but with the expectation of a new budget coming this fall, there could be a big change coming from this Ottawa wind shift.

Andy Adams – Editor