Contrary to what some people believe, the new federal wine bill, C-311, will not allow wine to be shipped freely across provincial borders within Canada; nor will it allow online sales of B.C. wines to those in other provinces.
All it does is “clarifies that a province can set limits. It didn’t open provincial borders to all imports from other provinces,” explains Kelowna-Lake Country MLA Norm Letnick.
In fact, negotiations are currently underway between the jurisdictions that control liquor legislation in all the provinces in Canada on what the limits will be in each on bringing wine, beer and spirits across the border from another province.
It’s highly unlikely that those talks and the decisions that will be made in each province’s legislature, will occur before tourist season gets underway in the Okanagan this weekend, much less by the end of summer.
“We want to encourage the ministry and the government to open trade across the country to domestic wines, but we can’t impose our view on the rest of the country,” commented Letnick.
“We’re working closely with other provinces to encourage them to open their borders,” he added.
However, he admitted it’s possible that some provinces are concerned that if Canadian borders are opened inter-provincially, our U.S. partners would also lobby to have our border opened to them.
It’s possible, he said, that there could be a challenge from our international trading partners.
And then there’s the question of a loss of revenue to the receiving province if other provinces accepted B.C. wines without payment of provincial taxes on it.
“The liquor industry is a substantial item in the provincial budget,” noted Letnick.
However, he said, because B.C. is a large producer of wines, “I believe our sales of wine to other provinces would offset any of our losses (from permitting imports from other provinces)” he said.
On the other hand, it is now legal under federal law for a resident of one province to take wine across a provincial border into another province, and Letnick conceded that while it was illegal before, it was an archaic law that few people knew about, and even fewer obeyed.
“The challenge is not so much in a few bottles being brought in by a resident, but in corporate shipments being delivered to other provinces (without taxes being paid). That would raise flags,” he commented.
While Letnick is hopeful that we will end up with a system where the other provinces allow more imports of B.C. wines, he says there may not be a one-size-fits-all solution. Each province could come up with different regulations.
The B.C. legislature, in anticipation of the federal government passing Bill C-311 and permitting interprovincial trade in wine, passed changes June 7 to permit B.C. residents to bring back up to one case of wine, four bottles of spirits and a combined total of six dozen beer, cider and coolers with them from other provinces.
That equals nine litres of wine, three litres of spirits and a combined total of 25.6 litres of beer, cider and coolers per trip.
An anonymous ministry spokesperson said the change aligned B.C.’s personal importation limits with other jurisdictions in Canada.
However, B.C. is prepared to lead discussions with other provinces and territories to consider more changes, including direct shipping, without incoming jurisdictional taxes, he or she said.
At present, no jurisdiction in Canada allows the direct shipping of wine without incoming taxes.
Prior to those June 7 legislative changes, B.C. didn’t have interprovincial importation limits, she said.
jsteeves@kelownacapnews.com
