Wine Growers Canada (WGC), the national association representing the Canadian wine industry, is renewing calls for federal-provincial progress to tackle long-standing, archaic barriers to inter-provincial trade. In an increasingly unpredictable international trade environment due to the ongoing threat of U.S. tariffs, Canada must focus on reducing barriers within its own domestic market, including those which specifically prevent wine from being couriered from wineries in one province to consumers in another.
WGC has been raising the issue at both the federal and provincial levels for two decades. Only Manitoba has fully opened its borders to inter-provincial alcohol trade. British Columbia and Nova Scotia have opened their borders to 100 per cent Canadian wine from licensed Canadian wineries, and on Jan. 6, 2025, British Columbia and Alberta launched a reciprocity agreement permitting winery-to-consumer delivery between the two provinces.
In 2012, the federal government passed MP Dan Albas’ private member’s bill which amended the federal Importation of the Intoxicating Liquors Act (1928), permitting Canadians to order wine from wineries in other provinces for personal use in accordance with provincial laws. However, years have passed and only 20 per cent of the Canadian population can order wine from any wine-producing province in Canada and have it delivered to their home.
WGC has advocated tirelessly on behalf of Canadian wineries, especially small and medium-sized wineries, who have limited access to provincial liquor boards, and for which direct delivery sales are crucial to economic growth. WGC has worked closely with both federal and provincial governments, testifying before the Senate Committee on Banking, Trade and Commerce, presenting to Federal-Provincial-Territorial Ministers of Agriculture, intervening in the R. v. Comeau Supreme Court case (2017), and informed the Canada Free Trade Agreement’s Federal-Provincial-Territorial Alcoholic Beverages Working Group’s National Direct-to-Consumer model (2023). These efforts informed the recent bilateral agreement between the provinces of Alberta and British Columbia, which now stands as a working reciprocity model for the rest of Canada.
“We need to tear down these barriers that limit consumer choice and the growth of the Canadian wine industry, an industry of over 600 grape wineries and 1,900 grape growers,” said Dan Paszkowski, president and CEO of WGC. “Our wineries attract 4.2 million tourist visitors every year, but for the vast majority of these visitors, it is still illegal to have their favourite wines from these wineries shipped to their out-of-province home. Today, on Canada’s Agriculture Day, the Canadian wine industry calls on all provincial Premiers to launch the process of removing the interprovincial barriers for winery-to-consumer delivery.
“The U.S. Supreme Court removed barriers to inter-state winery-to-consumer delivery in 2005, and the ongoing U.S. tariff risk has proven that it is time for Canada to enter the 21st century and free the grapes,” said Paszkowski.
Winery-to-consumer delivery would drive significant growth for the Canadian wine industry, the country’s highest-value agricultural sector. Industry research shows that for every dollar spent on Canadian wine, $3.20 in GDP is generated across the country. Inter-provincial winery-to-consumer delivery is supported by nine out of 10 Canadians, and wineries nationwide eagerly await the day when this choice is available to all legal drinking age consumers across the country.
