Snowmaggedon

How cold is it?

The news in Canada is simply chilling.

I remember the cold. And the snow.

Before retirement, we spent our winters huddled inside our igloo, fervently praying for spring to arrive. Spring inevitably would arrive, sometime around August. By then the ice on our lakes and rivers would melt for a few days before winter started again in September.

But I digress.

Many Canadians flee the harsh winter temperatures during their retirement years and head south. Even with a currency that the Government of Canada loves to devalue. The loonie is currently trading around 75 cents to the US dollar.

Lorraine is spending the day today at the Snowbirds Extravaganza show in Lakeland, Florida.

This is the largest mature lifestyle show in North America. A two-day event, the show can bring out 30,000 or more attendees to the RP Funding Center.

The demographic for this event swings a bit on the older side for me. I was not particularly interested in attending and so I agreed to stay back with our golden retriever.

Lorraine will provide me with an update later this evening.

Canadian snowbirds are an important economic contributor to the state of Florida. Consider the following impact of Canadians coming to Florida:

• Canada is Florida’s number one source of international tourism.
• 3.5 million Canadian’s visited Florida in 2017, spending over US$6.5 billion.
• Tourism generated more than half a billion dollars in tax revenue, more than enough to fund the public safety, transportation and library systems of Florida’s major counties.
• In 2017, Canadian’s purchased more than US$7.0 billion worth of real estate in Florida, contributing to a Canadian real estate portfolio in Florida of roughly US$53 billion.
• Real estate purchases in 2017 contributed an estimated additional US$67 million to county tax bases, with existing properties owned by Canadians generating an estimated US$508 million for counties in Florida.

Overall, trade and investment between Canada and Florida creates over 600,200 jobs in the state.

Snowmaggedon in Canada is a good thing for Florida.