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Five small BC wineries have been granted permission to bring their concerns to the Supreme Court of Canada regarding the interprovincial shipping of liquor.
The Supreme Court will hear the case in early December 2017.
R. v. Comeau is the first court case in which any winery in Canada has had an opportunity to address the legal barriers to interprovincial shipping of wine made from Canadian grown grapes.
This is an important case that will have a monumental effect on the Canadian liquor industry for decades to come and will benefit all Canadian wineries, but in particular small and medium size wineries that do not have national distribution.
Curtis Krouzel (50th Parallel Estate ), Ian MacDonald (Liquidity Wines ), Jim D'Andrea (Noble Ridge Vineyard and Winery ), Christine Coletta (Okanagan Crush Pad Winery ), and John Skinner (Painted Rock Estate Winery ) have been spearheading this, gained intervenor status with the Supreme Court of Canada, garnered international media attention, and have supported the cost of the initial application process (approximately $70k of their own money to date).
They are now asking for the wine industry to help, by raising funds to cover legal fees. They have started a GoFundMe page to collect funds. https://www.gofundme.com/canadian-wine-for-all. At the time of this publication, $44,390 has been raised towards their $200,000 goal.
Shea Coulson, counsel for the five winery owners, explains, "The Supreme Court of Canada will hear from the two parties to the appeal (the New Brunswick Crown and Mr. Comeau) as well as a couple dozen other "interveners" at the hearing on December 6 and 7, 2017. After the hearing, the Court could take up to a year to make its decision." Coulson's aim is to inform the Court about the significant negative impact on small BC wineries created by interprovincial barriers that prohibit shipment of wine to Canadians across the country. He notes, "The Court has to balance many complex interests, but my clients will argue that it is possible to incrementally change the law to permit interprovincial shipments of Canadian wine, and why it is of fundamental importance to the future survival of the industry to remove these barriers."
For this week's Top 10, we wanted to highlight ten BC wineries who have been vocal and tireless to promote the freedom of BC grapes. We encourage you to support them, and all our local wineries, to free Canadian grapes. #SupportLocal.
