Paul Martin Commentary
Saskatchewan consumers started the new year by cracking open their wallets.
This represents something of a rebound after the Christmas season where retail spending in November outpaced December as Black Friday has replaced Boxing Day as the consumer go-to event. But we really got things going again in early 2026.
StatsCanada has just released the retail sales figures for January showing an increase in every part of the country. Here in Saskatchewan, sales in January were up 1.7-percent compared to December. That may come as a bit of a surprise as December has traditionally been THE big month for retailers.
Then we got numbers from RBC for February. They track activity on their clients’ credit and debit cards to assess the state of the marketplace and found things were even better than January especially spending on groceries and entertainment.
In Saskatchewan, spending in February was up almost three percent compared to January which put us 3.5-percent ahead of the same time last year.
