Mr. Speaker, it being 6:20 p.m., it is a great time to talk about Canadian wine.
What a lot of people in the gallery who are listening tonight might not realize is that, if they buy a bottle of wine that is labelled “international Canadian blended” or “cellared in Canada”, the content of that wine might not be entirely Canadian.
A lot of our Canadian wine producers take issue with this labelling standard. This labelling standard was designated as an interim measure in 1994. This was a period of time in which Canada's wine industry was actually coming to the forefront.
The North American Free Trade Agreement had just been signed. There were a lot of provisions put in place in order to see some of our producers rip up old labrusca varietal vines and plant vinifera vines. Some of the producers at that time said they were going to have an inventory gap for a while. They wanted to stay competitive. They asked for an interim designation of country-of-origin labelling that allowed them to bring in wine from other areas and label it as such, until some of their vines got up and going.
It is more than 22 years later, I believe, and this interim measure is still in place. This is a great source of consternation for a variety of wine producers. The wine industry in Canada now is over $6 billion. It has a huge economic impact. Canadian producers are not just producing a quantity of wine, but they are also producing international award-winning wines.
What I have heard, when I was in government as minister of state for western economic diversification, and am still hearing today is that people do not think that this interim designation is fair. They think it should change. There is a lot of industry division on this.
When I was minister, I funded a project that was to look at competition and ways to make the industry in B.C. more competitive. One of the recommendations coming out of this project, I believe, was looking at this particular designation.
Some of the smaller producers in Canada say that the larger wine industry lobby groups are not advocating for a change in this. The larger producers generate a lot of revenue off this, and there certainly is a demand for lower priced wine that comes from the international blends. There is no question about that.
However, the smaller producers are saying that maybe we should not have this designation anymore. The larger producers are saying that maybe it should just be promulgated and this designation should be made permanent.
What I would like to see, as someone who does not think this is a particularly partisan issue, is a parliamentary committee study on this. I do not think this issue has been adequately addressed at the public service or bureaucratic level. I know that the minister has been very open to having a parliamentary study of this particular concept.
My question to my colleague is very simple. What is the government's intention on this? I know some in the industry would like this issue to just go away. They would not like to have a parliamentary committee review this. I really think it is important, because the industry is asking for other things, like a tax exemption for capital equipment investments for wineries. I do not think we can even look at that issue until we address the “cellared in Canada” issue.
My question is very simple. Will the government commit to a parliamentary study of this designation, and can it tell us the status, if it is considering actually promulgating this interim measure into law? I certainly think there are a lot of producers in Canada who would not support that.