Finance committee  Good afternoon. I'm Hillary Dawson. I'm president of the Wine Council of Ontario. On behalf of our membership, I'm very honoured to be invited to come and participate in these committee hearings today. The Wine Council of Ontario is the champion of Ontario's high-quality, aut

Finance committee  Yes. We recently finished a study in Ontario on the economic impact of the sale of VQA wines, and we looked at their impact on the economy over and above taxation. For every litre of VQA wine that is sold in Ontario, it's $12.29 in added economic value for both the province and t

Finance committee  I try to stress how diverse an industry the wine industry is. I know in your community, say, in the town of Lincoln, wineries are the biggest industrial taxpayers in that community. They're very significant and they're there to stay. People have tens of millions of dollars of in

Finance committee  Absolutely.

Finance committee  I think the provinces have been discussing this when they meet at the Canadian Association of Liquor Jurisdictions. So I think they've had an opportunity to discuss this and to see if they can come to terms, and if what we've seen reflected in their policy is any indication, I do

Finance committee  I think the important thing to understand is that, certainly in Ontario, when we're building our premium brands, they are sold primarily, right now, at your cellar door or through the Ontario Liquor Board through Vintages. They release so few SKUs of Ontario VQA wine every year

Finance committee  Also, it's complementary. Not only are our wineries trying to sell directly to the consumer, but we are trying to build that profile across Canada in liquor boards. It's a matter of capacity and how able you are in doing business with a liquor board versus doing piecemeal busines

Finance committee  Also, they mesh well. One grows the other, just like in Ontario. Wineries grow liquor boards grow wineries grow liquor boards....

Finance committee  I think it's not just “reasonable”; it's also how the transactions can happen, right? Let's find an environment where we can have some modern commercial relationships, 21st-century relationships, with our customer that, frankly, “personal transport” doesn't address. So yes, it

Finance committee  So it's a national effort. It's an ongoing effort on our part. We're hopeful that the liquor boards will be receptive, because it's not just the limit, it's how.

Agriculture committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. My name is Hillary Dawson. I'm president of the Wine Council of Ontario. I want to thank you for the opportunity to speak here today on behalf of our over 86 winery members from across this province. Our members are small and medium-sized enterpri

Agriculture committee  All right, thank you. This can and must be supported at both the federal and provincial level through Growing Forward 2 and its related programming. A third key avenue for premium VQA wines is direct sales to the trade. When given the opportunity to sell directly to the custome

Agriculture committee  I know in the wine industry that every time we've seen transitions in packaging we're always at a disadvantage. For instance, in Ontario we've been asked by the LCBO to lightweight our packaging for health and safety reasons with their employees. The access to the domestic glass

Agriculture committee  I always do agree on things like this. I think the leadership the government can show is important, in particular in helping disparate ministries work together to support an initiative. I know in the grape and wine sector we come across so many ministries that we have to work wi

Agriculture committee  Why don't I kick this off, Debbie? Let me start on the tourism aspect of things, and thank you very much for acknowledging the role that winery tourism and wine-country travel plays in generating tourism visits to our wine regions across this country. If you travel to Californ