Alberta posts strongest gain in provincial sales race

The strength in the Canadian light vehicle market remains in the resource rich West with Alberta leading all other provinces in sales gains for the month of September, says DesRosiers Automotive Consultants.

Alberta is up 6.4 per cent in September sales and 6.9 per cent year-to-date.

All western provinces are doing well this year at least on a year-to-date basis, although there are month-to-month exceptions. British Columbia is the weakest of the western provinces but is still up this year and better than most eastern provinces, according to the figures.  

“We believe the relative weakness in B.C. is because their market was overheated for years with spending related to the Olympics,” DesRosiers said in a release. 



The weakness in the Canadian market starts in Quebec and runs through all the Atlantic provinces. New Brunswick is up slightly this year by 0.7 per cent, but Quebec is down 2.2 per cent. Nova Scotia is down 5.8 per cent and is the worse market in Canada.

Prince Edward Island is down 3.2 per cent and Newfoundland is down by 5.1 per cent.

“Each of these provinces see the odd month where sales are up but the down months overwhelm the positive months.”



DesRosiers notes the Ontario market is performing well this year despite serious issues in the Ontario economy related to its manufacturing base. Year-to-date Ontario is up 2.9 per cent although in September their sales were down by 0.8 percent.

Of the 1,206,325 new vehicles sold thus far in Canada, the provincial breakdown is as follows:

Ontario: 443,357
Quebec: 325,006
British Columbia: 118,064
Alberta: 153,055
Nova Scotia: 37,400
Saskatchewan: 35,413
Manitoba: 34,080
New Brunswick: 29,877
Newfoundland: 25,210
PEI: 4,863