Welcome to Canadian Perspectives, a weekly IronPlanet blog post from the Great White North that will provide you with the inside scoop on the Canadian used equipment marketplace.
Every week, we’ll feature Canadian voices on things like fleet management, exchange rates and economic trends. We’ll sprinkle in distinctly Canadian phenomena like Maple Syrup, our urge to constantly apologize and a conflicting tendency to riot at hockey games.
Here are three more reasons you’ll want to tune in regularly to the Canadian Perspectives blog:
- What happens in Canada has a direct impact on, say, Kentucky: So far, Cat Auction Services has held two live auctions in Edmonton, Alberta, stocked with lots of low-hour, late model used equipment. While the majority of the inventory stays in Canada, a bunch of it goes around the world or south to US bidders who know great deals are available north of the 49th. Our last Edmonton used equipment auction attracted bidders from 17 countries and 34 U.S. states.
- We’ve got lots of great equipment for sale: Canada is a hotbed not just for hockey players, but for surplus heavy equipment thanks to our robust natural resource sector. It’s what happens when you’ve got just 35 million people living in a country that’s just a bit larger than the U.S. In world resource sector rankings for production, we rank 5th in natural gas and petroleum; first in potash and newsprint; second in softwood lumber, wood pulp and uranium; and third in aluminum, platinum, and hydroelectricity. So it’s really no accident, that we’re also home to the world’s largest Caterpillar dealer, Finning.
- We’re easy to do business with: We’re a polite group and somewhat self-deprecating. We smiled when Conan O’Brien described us as “a giant piece of white chocolate that sits atop America.” And sorry to brag, but we get along well with our North American trading partners. So much so that the U.S. and Canada enjoy the world’s largest and most comprehensive trading relationship, which covers the cross-border shopping for used equipment that IronPlanet encourages.
As we get this new Canadian venture off the ground, we’d love to hear from you - dear reader. What would you like to see covered in Canadian Perspectives? An interview with hosers Bob and Doug McKenzie? An exclusive on Ice Road Truckers? A special segment on the invention of the paint roller (yup, it’s Canadian)? You name it, we’ll deliver it. Watch for our next post next week. And thanks, most of all, for reading!
