Agriculture committee  Yes, but I would guess that the focus might be different between different crops. The wine and grape sector has made a very conscious decision to move towards quality, and I think it is working for us. It might also work for other sectors, but I'm not quite sure and would not presume to give any advice to any of the other producing commodities.

Agriculture committee  Oh yes, very much so. Within the province of B.C. we are reviving the buy B.C. program. Trying to build consumer loyalty at the national level is a very good idea. I think this is really our chance to secure a long-term market. If you have consumer loyalty, be it within your region, your province, or your country, you have a fairly secure outlet for your product.

Agriculture committee  There was some ice wine production, I think, this past year. I think some 600 tonnes of grapes approximately—don't quote me on this—were processed into ice wine. It is maybe a little bit of a smaller segment than in Ontario. There are some years where the climate just does not allow you to harvest ice wine before the end of January or early February.

Agriculture committee  I know that some are still doing it to try to remain in the market. I'm not quite sure that it is a very profitable segment in B.C.

Agriculture committee  Specifically, thanks to that mapping project, we have divided the Okanagan in a number of different regions that are linked, to some degree, to climate parameters to some degree, but also soil parameters. In the long run this will help the industry to make better informed choices on what to grow where profitably, and at the same time to be able to achieve optimum quality parameters.

Agriculture committee  Well, I wouldn't say that it will have no effect, but I think the effect will not be all that enormous in the wine sector. The consumer is primarily still looking for the 750-millilitre bottle of wine. I think for the near future this will probably still be the standard, even if you open up the packaging sizes to be larger.

Agriculture committee  There certainly are positions open, and there are positions that have been abandoned through attrition. Summerland has been advocating filling the position of plant physiologist for almost six years, and it appears that there may be some movement on that front. There is still a huge concern that there seems to be a bit of a direction—I'm not sure if it's a plan or whether it's simply happening by happenstance—toward abandoning support for federally funded research.

Agriculture committee  As I mentioned, the situation in B.C. is a little bit different. There is very little B.C. juice going into a “Cellared in Canada” wine. There is the odd one that is being blended, but I think it wouldn't really be possible for B.C. growers to produce for that market segment, simply because of price issues.

Agriculture committee  Thanks. Certainly that legislation was a great step forward. The problem is in the implementation. The provinces seem to be relatively slow in jumping on board. There are still quite a few barriers in place. The market expansion in Alberta is working fairly well. There's a fairly good relationship between B.C. and Alberta in this regard.

Agriculture committee  The quality of B.C. wine has increased dramatically over the past 10 or more years, so the market segment where we think we need to be is in high-quality product, which does fetch a little bit of a higher price. On average, I think a bottle of B.C. VQA wine is around $18, which is quite substantially above what you pay for cheaper Australian or American imported wine.

Agriculture committee  This is hard to say. There are a few wineries that are actually calling for changes in container regulation under the VQA system, who would like to put a bag in a box and have other more environmentally friendly containers on the market for VQA product. I think this is not an enormous issue right now.

Agriculture committee  Thank you. B.C. is a little bit different. I think in the B.C. liquor distribution system, in the LDB stores, the B.C. VQA and non-VQA wines do get a fairly substantial amount of shelf space. We also have, I think, about 30 VQA-specific stores in B.C. that sell only VQA wines, no imports at all.

Agriculture committee  Just to finish, our options are to build more and more consumer loyalty, based on the bylaw codes of B.C. or the Canadian product approach. We are hoping to continue our research efforts to support the ever-increasing demand for higher quality. Also, there is always a changing consumer attitude regarding what they would like to see in the marketplace.

Agriculture committee  Yes, sure. No problem. Thanks very much for inviting me to this hearing. First of all, I'll just give you a brief background on the British Columbia wine and grape industry. Then I'll go into a little bit more detailed analysis of the impact of research on the well-being of the wine and grape sectors.