Agriculture committee  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.

Agriculture committee  Absolutely not.

Agriculture committee  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.

Agriculture committee  That's terrific.

Agriculture committee  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.

Agriculture committee  Colour me a bit biased. The LCBO today sees itself as the retailer of choice for beverage alcohol. Unfortunately there's a pretty big competitor in Ontario called The Beer Store. It happens to be 96% foreign-owned, and it controls the sale of beer from both the on-premise standpoint and the retail standpoint.

Agriculture committee  Yes, any that would be out there.

Agriculture committee  That's right.

Agriculture committee  I have just one other point in terms of the carbon footprint and the weight, because there are more litres in less packaging.

Agriculture committee  Today, one of the very specific categories in wine consumption globally is the bag-in-the-box category. It is a larger size of format so that the cost per litre actually comes down. As the chairman of the VQA of Canada, I'm proud to tell you that VQA Ontario has now approved the bag-in-the-box for VQA wines—

Agriculture committee  The bag-in-the-box consumer today is in our target market because they're people who are in the early stages of their wine appreciation. The person who buys a wonderful Bordeaux or a classic big Australian isn't the person looking for a bag-in-the-box. It's somebody who's at the entry level in the category, and for us to build a first impression—

Agriculture committee  Exactly.

Agriculture committee  Also, for a Canadian producer, the route to market is hundreds of kilometres at the outside. On the carbon footprint of the same product coming from Australia, Chile, or Argentina, for example, there's no comparison.

Agriculture committee  We absolutely do support it. We know it won't necessarily grow the market share for our industry, because that's a consumer who is already an advocate. But what we hope is that when they get to their destination—if someone has purchased the wine in Ontario and is taking it back to Saskatchewan or conversely is taking it from B.C. to another place—they will say they are ready to try Canadian wines again.

Agriculture committee  As a producer of outgoing wines, Ontario's completely silent, funnily enough, because they attract the taxes either at the cellar door or at the retail store, so they are still getting all of the taxes from provincial and federal standpoints. Depending on which province is getting the incoming wine, there are some issues.