At a briefing held last week in Vancouver, negotiators for the Canadian government and for the EU confirmed that the wine trade is one of the significant issues still to be resolved as part of the talks leading to a Canada/EU free trade agreement. The current timeline for an agreement is the end of this year. As I have written here previously, BC and Canada\’s current wine distribution and pricing system likely violates our current international trade obligations and needs to be fixed: BC Wine and Trade Agreement Trouble. This is an issue of significant interest to myself … and should also be one of concern for the industry as a whole. BC\’s current wine distribution system is long overdue for an overhaul. A concerted effort to modernize the system could also include measures which would effect a resolution of the longstanding trade problems.
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