Thank you so much for including me in this discussion.
I doubt I'll need 10 minutes.
My take on this is different from all the other folks you've heard from, except for Shirley-Ann. I'm not a corporate type of person, but I do have information that I think would be of interest to you.
I've been hosting Tasting Room Radio, a weekly one-hour food and wine-driven show that started in the Okanagan. It's heard province-wide in Alberta, throughout the Okanagan, and in Vancouver, Victoria, and Vancouver Island.
Not only do I conduct the interviews with the winemakers, growers, and principals of the wineries, but I also edit the interviews. As a result, I listen to them over and over again, shortening them down to a proper size. The information that comes from listening to their saying what they have to say is information that I want to impart to you today.
Two years ago, as a media observer, I attended a meeting at the very beginning of the Vancouver International Wine Festival. I was stunned when I listened to the conversations in the room. The top winemakers, small and large, along with some of the principals and owners, were all having the same conversation they'd had for years. They asked, "How do we get our wines across Canada, how do we work with the liquor boards, and how do we not live under the dark cloud that is the threat of the liquor boards?" This was simply because none of them could stand up and challenge the liquor boards across the country because their products would mysteriously disappear from the shelves.
I realized that they were in a bind, that they wanted to say something, and that they wanted to change the liquor laws that were written in 1928 during Prohibition. Because I had no affiliation with any winery, I stood up and I said, "I'll go".
Then along came the Banff Food and Wine Festival, and I went to the border. I wrote to the liquor control board offices in Victoria as well as to their headquarters in Edmonton and said, "This is what I'm doing and why". I had lunch with the RCMP—they bought—and then I went to the border. The only people who met me there were the media, God bless them. They got the story out and it started things rolling. Shirley-Ann then picked up on it and we ended down the way, in my small part, with Bill C-311.
To my astonishment, after the bill had been unanimously passed in both houses, Alberta refused to honour it. The Liberal B.C. government said, "We'd love to see Ontario wines in British Columbia", and they opened the doors. Ontario said, "Nah, we don't want to see B.C. wines here on a regular basis; we're not quite there yet". It just caused a lot of anger.
Strangely enough, Alberta is the best customer that we have outside of British Columbia. We buy a lot of our own wines. My show is heard in Alberta and I'm constantly getting feedback from Alberta customers and clients saying, "Why are we always being put in the situation where we don't know if we're breaking the law by bringing wines from the Okanagan back into Alberta". It's ironic because we see Tourism of B.C. saying, "Yeah, come on in, this is wine country, come on in", and then when customers get here, they say, "But, you can't take your wines back".
If you can help in any small way, to work with your provincial counterparts to clear up these hurdles, you will have done a great thing for this country.
We have bottlenecks all over the place; look no further than Alberta and Ontario. One or two things that would help would be to embrace the idea of having free trade within Canada, not just with the United Stated, and, additionally, to open up wine sales to the Internet, which everybody is talking about.
For every small winery out there, the wineries that make 3,000 to 5,000 cases of wine, every dollar is accounted for. They need one wine to pay the bills while the other wines are progressing. Usually it's a Sauvignon Blanc or a Pinot Gris, or whatever, but that's the wine they need help with. If we could recognize that, they could pay their bills while all the reds are growing. It would be a wonderful thing if we could target one wine within the portfolio of a small winery and say we're going to support that wine as hard as we can to help the winery pay the bills while it gets the rest of the bottles ready for market.
On the Canadian embassy, I just want to say that Janet Dorozynski is a wonderful supporter of the wine industry, and I applaud her work with the embassies across the world.
Also, on Bill C-311, let's honour it as best we can. That's what it was written for.
I was going to say that no one since 1928 has been charged under the Importation of Intoxicating Liquors Act, but there was one poor schmuck who tried to come across the U.S.-Canada border many years ago. But the threat is always there. The threat is always over top of the wineries, that “We will charge you; we will make your life very uncomfortable”. The liquor boards are seen as bullies. I wish I could say nicer things about them, but they don't like the spotlight; not now and not two years ago.
I'm far more interested in your questions that you have for us here, and that's why I came today.
Thank you.
