The rhetoric over NAFTA began not long after Donald Trump became president of the United States.
That rhetoric is now reality with round-one of negotiations underway with Canada politely reminding the U.S. of just how valuable its neighbour to the north really is.
“In 2016, Canada and the United States traded $635-billion U.S. worth of goods and services,” Foreign Affairs Minister Christia Freeland said.
On the table, among other things, is wine and U.S. wineries want a bigger chunk of the Canadian market.
The CEO of Quails Gate Estate Winery in West Kelowna, Tony Stewart, said the Americans already have a leg up on Canada under NAFTA when it comes to wine.
“In California, each winery licence is permitted two retail outlets. That doesn’t exist in British Columbia. We haven’t objected to that practice in California and we hope that the VQA stores that were set up to benefit industry — there’s 21 of them — that those would be maintained,” Stewart said.
Another sticking point with the Americans is grocery stores. As B.C. wine drinkers know, you can by your wine of choice at a variety of grocery stores, but only B.C. wines. The Americans want want a cut of that business, and Stewart fears that would mean less shelf space for B.C. wines.
“The last thing I want to see is a shelf of wines that are owned by larger corporations that look and feel like they’re family owned but they’re not,” Stewart said.
And jobs could be at stake. If consumers are buying up more American wines, the indirect impact could be jobs, because as Stewart said, the wine industry creates tons of spin-off jobs.
“So my fear is that if anything would be is — if there’s anything that would impede the growth in the Canadian wine industry, we would see job loses and we would see a reduction in economic impact,” he said.
If Stewart had his way, he would keep the current NAFTA the deal when it comes to wine just the way it is. Don’t a change a thing, he said, because the Americans play for keeps.
“The US producers are going to be looking for concessions with respect to things the industry already has and in that regard, we want to see the status quo maintained,” he said.