Premiers in Ontario, Quebec and British Columbia have committed to work together to give consumers better access to out-of-province wines.
The objective is to provide consumers with full and easy access to on-line purchases of any wine produced in all three provinces.
"I can only ship to Alberta, and Manitoba and I believe Nova Scotia. I am not allowed, legally, to ship to British Columbia or Quebec," says Tom O'Brien, president of Cooper's Hawk Vineyard in Harrow. "Under this new agreement it sounds like they are going to drop those laws that will make it easier for let's say if a person comes to my winery from British Columbia, and we get lots of folks out, they say 'hey can you ship me wine back hone,' now we can do it." He believes the availability of out-of-province wines will not negatively harm the industry in Ontario. He just hopes the system is consumer and producer friendly. "I'm hoping that the government's will say there's already systems in place that effectively represent wineries to consumers and just use those as opposed to maybe creating a huge monopoly of online ordering systems," says O'Brien. Québec, Ontario and British Columbia have committed to work together to make the changes through their respective distribution branches, respectively the Société des alcools du Québec (SAQ), the Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO) and the Liquor Distribution Branch (LDB).
