Paul Martin’s Business Update – January 19th, 2015

The month of November was tough on the province’s car dealers.

For most of last year, dealers were moving between 1,100 and 1,200 new cars on a monthly basis. That dropped off to fewer than 850 in November. Sales of trucks – which includes half-tons as well as SUVs – came in at roughly 3,500. That too is a relatively soft number as most of the year saw this category in the 4,500 range.

Trying to read much into these StatsCan data is a bit tough as, it turns out, the whole country saw a big drop off in November. Alberta was down about 10 per cent while Manitoba felt a 30-percent reduction.

It also was probably too early in the year to be attributed to the falling price of oil but there is no doubt this was a significant deviation from what had been a fairly steady trend through most of 2014. Given that vehicle purchases are big ticket items, there’s little doubt that the financial community will be watching this indicator closely to see if it signals a sea change in consumer attitudes.

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