Across the country, Canadians are gearing up for Halloween, preparing to dress up as Elsa from Frozen, a good old vampire, doing their best pizza rat — or just staying home and eating candy.
We decided to pull together some Halloween numbers. You might find the numbers surprising (or even a little spooky).
The Retail Council estimates that Canadians spend about one billion dollars on Halloween.
Halloween in Canada is not just about carving up a couple pumpkins and raiding thrift stores and grandma’s closet for home-made costumes. In 2014, the Retail Council of Canada announced that Halloween had gone viral in Canada. The country saw a rise in money spent on candy, costumes and Halloween décor, so much so that it was higher than Halloween spending per capita in the United States.
A new survey by RetailMeNot finds that the average Canadian plans to spend $178 on this spooky holiday. Even in Alberta, where the economy is a little scary, Halloween is not expected to be tame. According to the survey, Albertans are expected to be the biggest spenders in Canada, forking out $200 on average.
Let’s talk about the best part of Halloween – the candy. Halloween is second only to Christmas when it comes to the consumption of sugary treats, with $397 million spent on candy, confectionary and snack foods in Oct 2014. The survey also found that an average Albertan will spend $45 on treats — more than any other province.
So how many children can you expect at your doorstep? The number of children of prime trick or treating age has been on the rise in Alberta. Manitoba and Saskatchewan have remained relatively constant for the last few years while British Columbia has been decreasing.
Farms with pumpkin patches in 2011. As evident from this graph, the best place to carve jack o’ lanterns is British Columbia; there are a lot more pumpkins there.
Happy Halloween!
— By Shafak Sajid, policy analyst
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