Auto sales in Canada recover in 2021, province by province

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Is your local market rebounding?

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According to Statistics Canada, auto sales in Canada have jumped 25% in the first seven months of 2021.

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It’s a year-over-year comparison, the kind of relativity that we apply to all kinds of industries. But has he never been more disabled? 2020, you will recall, produced devastating results for the Canadian auto industry, although not as dire as expected at the start of the second quarter of 2020.

In contrast, compared to the first seven months of 2019, auto sales in Canada are actually down 13%, down 153,000 sales, or about 720 fewer sales per day.

Yet the tidal changes from 2019 to 2020 to 2021 in the Canadian new vehicle market are not geographically uniform. There are regions where growth is substantial; regions where the struggle is still very real. There are parts of the country where the pace of 2019 sales remains a distant memory; areas where the 2021 automotive market is evolving at or near a pre-pandemic rate.

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Rather than investigating vehicles, we are looking more at the provinces. Is your local market rebounding or is demand still weakening? We have all the necessary figures directly from the government.

James Hinchcliffe speeds through the Toronto cityscape.
James Hinchcliffe speeds through the Toronto cityscape. Photo by Joe Skibinski / INDYCAR

Ontario: 400,310, up 19%

Canada’s largest auto market, Ontario, has 92 times as many people as Canada’s smallest auto market, Prince Edward Island. The number of COVID cases in Ontario, however, is more than 2,200 times higher. This public health fact alone does not explain Ontario’s slow growth, but it certainly does play a role. No province in the country is recovering so slowly from 2020. Compared to 2019, auto sales in Ontario in the first seven months of 2021 are down by more than a fifth.

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Quebec: 251,857, up 29%

Much of the country’s year-over-year results show the most dramatic change in April. In 2020, it was the first full month in which lockdowns took full effect, unemployment skyrocketed and COVID erupted. But in Quebec, this dramatic turning point is, well, particularly dramatic. The April 2021 volume jumped 544%. The nation as a whole did not fall as strongly in April 2020 and thus reveals a less substantial rebound: 252%.

British Columbia: 124,423, up 39%

Sales results in British Columbia, which include vehicle sales in the three territories, are recovering faster than in all other provinces in the country except one. After the two big markets produce almost two-thirds of the country’s auto sales, British Columbia and Alberta are the middle provinces: much less in volume than the big markets, much more than the small markets. British Columbia is down 3% from 2019, which equates to about 500 fewer sales per month.

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Badass minivan in Badlands, Alberta
Badass minivan in Badlands, Alberta Photo by Steven Bochenek

Alberta: 120,880, up 23%

Although generally the third largest market in Canada – Alberta generated 7% more demand than British Columbia in the first seven months of 2020 and 5% more two years ago – the Alberta’s recovery has weakened relative to its western neighbor. Given the province’s positioning as the collection capital of Canada, the lack of inventory in this segment has done the overall provincial volume no favor this year.

Manitoba: 30,425, up 22%

Dangerously on the verge of losing its fifth place to a province with 40% fewer residents, Manitoba’s rehabilitation in 2021 ranks third in the country. Manitoba’s total volume in the first seven months of the year is a 13% drop from 2019 levels when Manitobans purchased 5,000 vehicles per month.

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The Ceres container installation in Nova Scotia.
The Ceres container installation in Nova Scotia. Photo for Halifax Autoport

Nova Scotia: 28,062, up 35%

On the far east coast of mainland Canada, Nova Scotia’s auto sales volume remains far from the 2019 pace, but is skyrocketing beyond 2020 production. Unsurprisingly, a large portion of this oscillation occurred in March and April, when the 2020 collapse was most notable. While April produced the worst of 2020 with just 1,625 sales, April 2021 turned out to be the best month so far with 4,847 sales in Nova Scotia.

Saskatchewan: 26,374, up 21%

In most cases, a 21 percent year-over-year growth rate would be more than enough to produce positive headlines in the automotive press. But in Saskatchewan, it’s a modest move in 2021 given the country’s accelerated recovery. With inventory constraints becoming more serious as 2021 dragged on, Saskatchewan auto sales began to decline in the spring. March’s volume, for example, was 18% higher than July’s, an atypical development that rejects common seasonal trajectories.

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New Brunswick: 23,387, up 28%

The decline in auto sales in New Brunswick in 2020 was not as severe as that experienced by much of the country, falling less than 16% by the end of the year. As a result, the recovery is not as dramatic as in some parts of the country. The best month of 2021 in New Brunswick to date was April, with over 4,100 sales. This is actually the best month for auto sales in New Brunswick since August 2019.

The small village of Bauline, Newfoundland and Labrador, was the starting point of Targa Newfoundland in 2017.
The small village of Bauline, Newfoundland and Labrador, was the starting point of Targa Newfoundland in 2017.

Newfoundland and Labrador: 17,960, up 23%

If you want to get a feel for the seasonality of the Canadian auto industry, just look at the difference in Newfoundland between auto sales in January and auto sales in June. Over the past six years, Newfoundlanders have purchased 117 percent more vehicles in early summer than in mid-winter. The whole country market is seasonal, to be fair, but the gap between the seasonal fluctuations of the market across the country is not that big, just 70%.

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Prince Edward Island: 5,112, up 42%

One province, and only one, generates more new vehicle traffic in 2021 than even before the 2019 pandemic: Prince Edward Island. Certainly Prince Edward Island is a small market by the standards of all the other provinces in the country. Prince Edward Island averages just over 700 new auto sales per month. Ontario moves so many new vehicles in one afternoon. However, compared to 2019, auto sales on the Island are up 4%. It may not be a coincidence, although often faced with severe restrictions during a pandemic, Prince Edward Island has hardly been affected by COVID-19.

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