by John S » Tue Nov 28, 2023 1:21 am
It's a long story. Here's where I see things. First, up to about 3 or 4 years ago, it was illegal to ship wine between provinces. Now some provinces allow it, but most still don't. So that wasn't conducive to getting ON wines in BC and vice versa. Now wineries (only wineries) in ON are allowed to ship wines to BC and a couple of other provinces. Second, the BCLDB monopoly does not bring in hardly any ON wines into BC, and the LCBO monopoly in ON doesn't bring in many BC wines into ON. Why? I assume each wants to protect their own wine regions and producers. Canada has a great deal of free trade pacts with other countries, but provinces, for some reason, don't seem to be all that keen to have free trade internally between provinces. Third, the few big wine companies haven't really spent a lot on advertising in other provinces, as they usually can't be found in many other provinces (Alberta has the most wines from other provinces, probably because they don't make wine there?). Fourth, many of the very best producers are small to medium sized producers: they have been and continue to focus on local consumers as they don't have a great deal of wine to sell relatively speaking (in a global sense). Fifth, and perhaps most importantly, the monopolies in ON and BC do not believe in change; they love their archaic, extremely conservative ways. Liquor is a big cash cow in all provinces (about 1 billion and 3 billion dollars each year in BC and ON respectively).
But the current ON government (of the right wing side) has stated things will change in about two years, so everyone in the liquor industry is pushing their own agendas to the government. No one knows what the Ford government will do, but they say big changes are coming. But I think it will mainly be 'internal' issues, and they will probably not do anything to change the lack of wines being sold in 'other' provinces. In ON right now, they sell FAR more 'international blended wines (from California, Chili, Australia, etc.) that are extremely cheap than local ON wines. The local wineries are not happy about that! So they are focused on lowering the huge amount of taxes and duties the ON gov't have right now on local wines, and on taxing the hell out of the 'international blends'.
So in the end, it's largely a political issue, a reflection of the archaic liquor laws we still have in Canada, and the fact that each province has power over all things liquor related, not the federal government. Each provincial government could care less about the other provinces.
