Finance Committee on April 3rd, 2012

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Mr. Hicken, you have 30 seconds on this.

[Mark Hicken]

Sure. I think it's a valuable addition to the bill. Because if it's not there, then conceivably you could have a province that sets the limit at two bottles per person, or even per year. You could end up with an unreasonably small limit.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Okay, but let me ask this specifically, because Ms. George said that the province can still set a limit. With “reasonable”, if the amendment is passed, can a province set a limit or not?

[Mark Hicken]

The way it's written right now, it just says that the provinces will set a limit—

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

I understand that.

[Mark Hicken]

We're asking for that limit to be defined to be a reasonable limit.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Okay. I'm asking a very specific question. If you add “reasonable”, can the province still set a limit?

[Mark Hicken]

Sure, but they then have to be able to defend it, because legally the limit has to be a “reasonable” amount for personal consumption. If they set the limit at two bottles per person, then theoretically somebody could go to court and say that it's not a reasonable limit for personal consumption if they've set it at two bottles.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

So instead of me as a citizen of Alberta pressuring my government, if you had “reasonable” there, the expectation is that you would sort it out through the court system.

[Mark Hicken]

Well, hopefully you wouldn't have to sort it out through the court system, because it's then in the law, and hopefully the province would act responsibly and actually set a reasonable limit, not something that is unreasonable.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

A reasonable limit as defined by the province.

[Mark Hicken]

Well, then at least you have to be able to defend it. Legally, there's a difference between saying there's a reasonable limit and just setting a limit. A limit could be an unreasonable limit.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Okay. I'm going to move on to the issue of 100% Canadian grapes.

Ms. Zimmerman, I'd like to hear from you and Mr. Hicken on this issue. We had testimony at our last session saying that if this were adopted we would have trade challenges presented to Canada. Now, you clearly disagree with that, so I wanted to get you on the record in response to what was said at our last session. I'd like to get Mr. Hicken's response as well.

[Debbie Zimmerman]

Again, I'm not a trade specialist. We've been given advice on it saying that our position is clear. We would have liked to see the bill address 100% Canadian. We feel that would have been fair.

We are raising the issue and are on the record that if there are potential issues in the future and we have issues related to the fact that we cannot move our grapes for whatever reason.... And if the intoxicating liquors act is opened up and is previewed for other issues and they cause concern for our industry—because this is not the only issue and there may be others—obviously we wanted to be on the record today to say that. That's why we're here.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Okay. Thank you.

Mr. Hicken, you have 30 seconds on this.

[Mark Hicken]

I think the bill as currently written, or if it included the word “reasonable”, would clearly be compliant with our trade agreement obligations. I do have reservations, as we discussed earlier, about the 100% Canadian wine issue, but I think the bill, as it is currently written, would not prompt any kind of trade challenge.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you.

For our last round, we'll go to Mr. Allison, please.

[Dean Allison, Conservative, Niagara West—Glanbrook, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I just want to go back again, because I don't think everyone around the room understands exactly how foreign markets work in terms of how they own their markets. We talked about Australia, Italy, and France. Can you talk to me about what they own in terms of their domestic market, generally speaking? You may—

[Debbie Zimmerman]

How much do they own of our domestic market, or...?

[Dean Allison, Conservative, Niagara West—Glanbrook, ON]

In places like France, how much of their own markets—

[Debbie Zimmerman]

It's over 75%, in most cases.

[Dean Allison, Conservative, Niagara West—Glanbrook, ON]

Over 75%?

[Debbie Zimmerman]

In most cases.

[Dean Allison, Conservative, Niagara West—Glanbrook, ON]

And that's the case for most wine-producing countries?

[Debbie Zimmerman]

Yes.