Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I will make my remarks in English, but if any members of the committee prefer to ask me questions in French afterwards, I can answer in French.
As I just said, I will deliver my main remarks in English.
My name is Paul Bosc. I'm the president of Château des Charmes wines in Niagara-on-the-Lake. This is a business that I have spent my entire adult life in. My father founded the business in 1978. My family came to Canada from France in the 1960s. My dad represents the fifth generation, and I represent the sixth generation of my family to grow grapes and make wine professionally. We've made wine on three continents.
I've had the opportunity over the course of my career to travel all over the wine world. I have built friendships and relationships with wineries all over the world.
I'm here to state that I firmly believe that the status quo, as we have it in this country, is anti-competitive and puts the Canadian wine industry at a distinct disadvantage to our foreign competitors who enjoy DTC privileges in their home markets. I can assure you that they are not holding hearings in France right now to debate whether a French winery in Bordeaux could ship wine to their customers in Paris. In fact, a winery in France can deal directly with consumers all over the EU market of 400 million potential consumers. As Shirley-Ann so rightly pointed out, right next door in the United States, 38 U.S. states permit DTC, which captures something like 82% or 85% of the U.S. population.
Why are we at a disadvantage? When you are cutting out the middleman, the wholesaler, or the retailer, and you act as the retailer yourself, this becomes a very lucrative channel. Wineries in other parts of the world that do participate in this trade are stronger in their home markets as a result. That, in turn, makes them powerful exporters. You can't become a powerful exporter unless you have a pretty strong position in your home market. I will use the French as an example again. They have 90% of their domestic market. It puts them in a good position to tackle an export market like Canada.
Much of the interest in DTC is tourism-driven. Canada is a very big country. It's very much about visitors to our winery who come to us from sometimes thousands of kilometres away, from Alberta, Saskatchewan, B.C., or Nova Scotia, and they would like to buy a couple of cases of wine. They would like some help to ship it back. It's just that simple. It happens to be my personal view that it is none of the business of the province they are from, or of the liquor board where they are from, what they are doing when they are visiting Niagara-on-the-Lake and wanting to buy a couple of cases of wine.
Now, I did mention that these are lucrative retail transactions. Wine is now made in six provinces in Canada. There are more than 400 wineries in Canada. Most of them are small family businesses.