Free the Wine!

Kelowna Lake Country MP, Ron Cannan, has tabled a motion in the House of Commons to end Canada's silly interprovincial wine shipping prohibition by creating a personal use exemption. It's about time ... and please support this effort by visiting the FreeMyGrapes.ca campaign website and telling your own MP that you strongly support it.

The motion reads as follows:

That, in the opinion of the House, the Canadian wine industry, the Canadian tourism industry and Canadian consumers would benefit from an amendment to the Importation of Intoxicating Liquors Act to allow any person to import, send, take or transport Canadian wine into any province or territory directly from a winery, liquor board, liquor commission or similar outlet for the sale of wine located in any other province or territory within Canada for consumption by that person and not for resale, further distribution, sale or for any use other than personal consumption.

The Globe & Mail (Free Our Wine, and the rest will follow) has now endorsed this effort. A post-prohibition era 1928 law currently makes it illegal for consumers to transport a single bottle of wine across a provincial border. The law also makes it illegal for BC wineries to ship to consumers in other parts of Canada. This law was originally designed to stop the inter-provincial traffic of liquor between provinces that had retained prohibition and those that had scrapped it in favour of government control. However, this purpose is long gone and the law is now used solely by monopoly provincial liquor boards to prevent competition by maintaining their absolute authority over prices and distribution. Theoretically, the law makes criminals out of tourists who take wine home with them from an Okanagan vacation. The proposed amendment would create a sensible "personal use" exemption so that Canadian wine lovers could legally move wine across provincial borders.