Celebrating 50 years of the Canadian Recreational Vehicle Association

When the Canadian RV Association (CRVA) was founded in 1975, it marked the start of a new era for the industry. Until then, Canadian RV manufacturers had been grouped together with the mobile home sector under the Canadian Mobile Home and Travel Trailer Association. But as the RV lifestyle gained momentum, it became clear that recreational vehicles and mobile homes had very different priorities, challenges, and regulatory needs. Out of that realization, the CRVA was born.

Fifty years later, the association has grown from a grassroots effort into a national voice for Canada’s RV industry. To mark this milestone, we sat down with CRVA President Shane Devenish to talk about the association’s origins, its impact over the past five decades, and the road ahead for RVing in Canada.

What was the RV industry like in Canada when the CRVA first began?

When the CRVA was founded, the industry was just starting to take shape. One of the largest threats at the time was that provinces were beginning to draft their own RV regulations, which would have created a patchwork of inconsistent rules across the country making it hard for a Manufacturer in Alberta to sell to Ontario if the building standards were different between provinces for example.

To address this, CRVA partnered with CSA to develop the CSA Z240 RV Series—a single, national RV building standard. That move was a literally a game-changer for the Canadian RV industry. It created consistency and safety across the board and set the stage for our industry’s future growth.

In 1978, we had 67 RV manufacturers building to that CSA standard, that included:

• 32 Travel trailer manufacturers
• 30 Truck camper manufacturers
• 37 Motorhome builders
• 4 Folding trailer companies

Unfortunately, the Canadian manufacturing landscape today looks much different than it did back then. With the implementation of free trade in 1989, the effects of a par dollar and finally the Great Recession, we have lost most of our manufacturing base since that time.

How would you describe the current state of the RV industry in Canada?

As we all know, the RV industry saw a massive boom during the pandemic. With other forms of travel off the table, we saw a lot of Canadians turned to RVing as the only way to get out, explore and get outdoors for their mental health.

That brought a wave of new buyers into the lifestyle. Yes, some of them sold their RVs since, but we’ve been really pleased by how many stuck around. It has really shown everyone that RVing isn’t just a trend, we had something people could truly connect with.

During the 1st quarter of this year, we saw a spike in wholesale shipments as dealers rushed to bring in inventory ahead of a potential counter-tariff deadline that the Canadian government had threatened in response to the implementation of unfair U.S. tariffs, in February.

These U.S. tariffs have created serious uncertainty for dealers, manufacturers and our Canadian consumers. And while the counter-tariffs on the towable market didn’t end up taking effect, and tariffs on motorhomes into Canada eliminated as of June 26th, the threat of them distorted the market and caused a lot of stress throughout the supply chain.

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