Evidence of meeting #72 for Agriculture and Agri-Food in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was industry.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
LaVar Payne Conservative Medicine Hat, AB
I'm not sure how much time I have here. I have some questions.
Conservative
LaVar Payne Conservative Medicine Hat, AB
For the winery folks, I don't drink a lot of pop. I drink water, coffee, and I hate to tell you this, but I do drink some Scotch. But I have found here in Ontario a very nice wine.... “Let it all hang out there.”
Conservative
LaVar Payne Conservative Medicine Hat, AB
I was at a restaurant with my wife and her sister, and we found this Ontario wine. It's probably the smoothest red wine I've ever had. I tried to track it down, and it took a while. I found out who was the maker of the wine. Even before our colleague's bill went through, I managed to ship quite a few bottles of that wine to Alberta. I've told many people that I've already broken that law several times; however, I'll just leave that.
One of my colleagues talked about the barriers. Are there any barriers in Alberta? I'm not sure if there are.
Director, Winery and Grower Alliance of Ontario
No. Our company, as an example, actually has staff in Alberta who work for us on the ground, selling to the different retailers, whether it's Costco, the Real Canadian Superstore, or Willow Park. They are advocates of our brand.
The way it sets up in the private marketplace in Alberta is that the AGLC has a warehouse, they run the warehousing side of it. Then the individual retailers work with sales and distribution companies to assemble what they're going to do. They pay the AGLC. The AGLC pays me every Friday. It's fantastic. It's a private market that works. It's a good example of how it can work.
The number of stores, of points of retail in the marketplace today, is about double what it was while it was being run by the province. However, the volumes have really not gone up, and there's been a shift in terms of the product pricing. There continue to be some very interesting wines in the marketplace, but they aren't in broad distribution. So it's more specialized.
Conservative
LaVar Payne Conservative Medicine Hat, AB
I've been trying to help market this Ontario wine to some of my friends back home. They got me to organize shipping for them.
Director, Winery and Grower Alliance of Ontario
That's terrific.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Merv Tweed
Everyone in the committee always has extra questions. I have a couple. You referred to other countries owning their domestic markets. Are they doing it by regulation or because they make a good product and people want to buy it?
The U.S. is at 66%. I'm suggesting they may have a more open market, but are the other countries doing it by regulation?
Director, Winery and Grower Alliance of Ontario
I'll give you an example. Today 60% of the wine that France makes is sold in the export market because they produce such an oversupply of grapes. Funnily enough the oversupply of grapes drives government investment through a program called the euro fund, whereby they invest money to sell the agricultural product in export markets because they grow more fruit than they need. This is similar to Australia. Remember that Australia, as we demonstrated, absorbs in that marketplace—they have an 84% market share. In France the market share is about 80% as well.
Italy, on the other hand, consumes most of their product within the country. They're enormously loyal to Italian wines—14 different provincial regions grow grapes and make fantastic wines. The best wines stay in Italy. They also sell part of their surplus through the euro fund.
We're a burgeoning industry; we're not in oversupply. We use every grape we can get our hands on and we buy more, the more it's planted. As the footprint for vineyards expands, we believe our market is going to grow because we have tremendous confidence in our winemaking and our viticultural/agricultural practices.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Merv Tweed
You're not suggesting that the government regulate to improve your position in the marketplace?
Conservative
Director, Winery and Grower Alliance of Ontario
No, but I can tell you that work is being done in that area on two different projects: in British Columbia in Summerland and in Niagara at Brock University. It's part of what I'm going to call an overarching program. The head of the research program at Brock University's Cool Climate Oenology and Viticulture Institute has now moved into the Okanagan Valley and is establishing a similar protocol in research in British Columbia.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Merv Tweed
Mr. Goetz, does your organization have an opinion on energy drinks?
President, Canadian Beverage Association
We represent energy drink manufacturers and distributors. We are working very closely. You're probably aware that energy drinks are being moved from the natural health product category into a food category. That will line them up with how energy drinks are sold in 160 other countries.
President, Canadian Beverage Association
We support that process.
Along with the move from the natural health product category to the food category, energy drink producers will have to adhere to a number of requirements, particularly when it comes to labelling. There will be a nutritional facts label on these products, similar to all other food and beverage products.
Caffeine levels are going to be capped at a maximum of 180 milligrams of caffeine for a large single-serve container. We should put that in perspective. Your average short coffee from a well-known coffee chain has 175 milligrams of caffeine. We are supportive of that process, and we are working very closely with Health Canada on the transition.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Merv Tweed
In closing, as a committee we hear the issues you've raised whenever we see other parts of the world that have approved the process and met all the requirements and yet we tend to delay so we can do our own process. I think that's probably something we've heard in every food variety and also in the supply chain, particularly in the grains sector—the ability to buy something 10 minutes across the border that's been tested for seven years, but because it hasn't been approved in Canada we can't get it.
Mr. Valeriote.
Liberal
Frank Valeriote Liberal Guelph, ON
With the permission of the committee, could I ask Mr. Goetz a question about beer?
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Merv Tweed
With the will of the committee we'll give you one question.
You have 30 seconds.
Liberal
Frank Valeriote Liberal Guelph, ON
In 30 seconds, should we apply the same interprovincial cross-border free trade on beer as we do for wine?