When Regina hosted the 2013 Grey Cup, the province’s tourism sector brought in roughly $93 million. That same revenue was projected by Tourism Saskatchewan for later this year, when the city was set to host the championship game again.
Mary Taylor-Ash, the CEO of Tourism Saskatchewan said “it’s a big deal” regardless of whether people saw it coming.
“When we do host the festival, the economic impact is very far-reaching — everything from the obvious things from hotels and restaurants to retail is impacted,” she explained.
Those feelings were echoed by Tracy Fahlman, the president and CEO of the Regina Hotels Association.
She said hotel rooms alone brought in $1 million when the Queen City hosted the Grey Cup in 2013 and a lot of local hoteliers were banking on that money this time around.
“A lot of our business comes from events; this is something our city is incredibly strong in as we are known as a national event destination,” she said, listing the recent Heritage Classic and the Garth Brooks concerts at Mosaic Stadium as examples.
Even six months ahead of the championship game, Fahlman said hotel rooms in the city were “incredibly close” to being sold out.
Economic loss ‘in the range of $100 million,’ says the Regina Chamber of Commerce
The Regina Chamber of Commerce estimates the economic loss of the city not hosting Grey Cup festivities this year is “in the range of $100 million.”
That will mostly affect hotels and restaurants — businesses already having a hard time due to the pandemic, according to the chamber’s CEO, John Hopkins.
However, he added it brings many local business owners comfort knowing there’s somewhat of a plan to regain that economic boost down the line.
“If it would have been, ‘It’s cancelled and you’re not going to get [the Grey Cup], we don’t know when you’re going to get it,’ that would have been a very different scenario,” Hopkins said. “We can plan for 2022 and look forward to that, and we can move ahead from there.”
Regina mayor has ‘mixed feelings’ about postponement
Mayor Michael Fougere said he has “mixed feelings” about the Grey Cup festivities’ being pushed back two years.
“On the one hand, I’m still excited that we’re still looking at a shortened CFL season — that’s good news. That there might be a Grey Cup is good news too, but that it won’t be in Regina at the festival we had planned is a disappointment,” he said.
Fougere added the City of Regina expects a $16 million loss to the local economy and the province another $25 million.
He noted most of that $16 million was set to go to the federal and provincial governments via taxes, so it shouldn’t affect taxpayers.
“What we see is just the impact in terms of additional money in the economy for that period of time — so, in terms of property taxes, we won’t see much of an effect at all,” said Fougere.
When it was announced Regina would host the 2020 Grey Cup, the city had made a $1 million contribution — $500,000 cash, another $500,000 in-kind. Fougere said that money still holds and will be now pushed to the 2022 Grey Cup event.
OTTAWA – The parliamentary budget officer says the federal government likely failed to keep its deficit below its promised $40 billion cap in the last fiscal year.
However the PBO also projects in its latest economic and fiscal outlook today that weak economic growth this year will begin to rebound in 2025.
The budget watchdog estimates in its report that the federal government posted a $46.8 billion deficit for the 2023-24 fiscal year.
Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland pledged a year ago to keep the deficit capped at $40 billion and in her spring budget said the deficit for 2023-24 stayed in line with that promise.
The final tally of the last year’s deficit will be confirmed when the government publishes its annual public accounts report this fall.
The PBO says economic growth will remain tepid this year but will rebound in 2025 as the Bank of Canada’s interest rate cuts stimulate spending and business investment.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 17, 2024.
OTTAWA – Statistics Canada says the level of food insecurity increased in 2022 as inflation hit peak levels.
In a report using data from the Canadian community health survey, the agency says 15.6 per cent of households experienced some level of food insecurity in 2022 after being relatively stable from 2017 to 2021.
The reading was up from 9.6 per cent in 2017 and 11.6 per cent in 2018.
Statistics Canada says the prevalence of household food insecurity was slightly lower and stable during the pandemic years as it fell to 8.5 per cent in the fall of 2020 and 9.1 per cent in 2021.
In addition to an increase in the prevalence of food insecurity in 2022, the agency says there was an increase in the severity as more households reported moderate or severe food insecurity.
It also noted an increase in the number of Canadians living in moderately or severely food insecure households was also seen in the Canadian income survey data collected in the first half of 2023.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct 16, 2024.
OTTAWA – Statistics Canada says manufacturing sales in August fell to their lowest level since January 2022 as sales in the primary metal and petroleum and coal product subsectors fell.
The agency says manufacturing sales fell 1.3 per cent to $69.4 billion in August, after rising 1.1 per cent in July.
The drop came as sales in the primary metal subsector dropped 6.4 per cent to $5.3 billion in August, on lower prices and lower volumes.
Sales in the petroleum and coal product subsector fell 3.7 per cent to $7.8 billion in August on lower prices.
Meanwhile, sales of aerospace products and parts rose 7.3 per cent to $2.7 billion in August and wood product sales increased 3.8 per cent to $3.1 billion.
Overall manufacturing sales in constant dollars fell 0.8 per cent in August.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 16, 2024.