Even with tariffs, it’s still cheaper for Americans to buy B.C. wine

Even with the new tariffs, a U.S. wine drinker can get a bottle of wine from a B.C. winery for less than the same bottle sells in Ontario and Quebec. Photo by Shawn Talbot Photography

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With news that Canadian wine producers are being hit with 50 per cent U.S. tariffs, the immediate reaction of B.C.’s Lightning Rock Winery was to note that the tariffs are still not as high as the markup they face when selling within Canada.

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As detailed on the winery’s website, Lightning Rock is hit with a 75 per cent markup in sales to the Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO).

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In a Monday Substack post by National Post columnist John Ivison, Lightning Rock owner Ron Kubek said that while the new tariffs have devastated his U.S. sales, it’s ironically still cheaper for an American to buy his rosés than a customer in central Canada.

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Even with the new tariffs, a U.S. wine drinker can obtain Lightning Rock wines for $30 a bottle, while interprovincial markups mean that the same bottle sells for $38.17 in Ontario’s LCBO and $43.66 at La Société des alcools du Québec (SAQ).

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It’s been more than a year of official pledges to slash Canada’s interprovincial trade barriers as a response to the U.S. trade war. As Prime Minister Mark Carney pledged after the official breakdown of U.S. trade negotiations on Sunday, his government will “tear down the barriers that have divided our economy for generations.”

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And yet, liquor continues to be the most conspicuous symbol of how many of those barriers remain in place.

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According to official Government of Canada estimates, the Canadian economy loses up to $200 billion each year due to a latticework of interprovincial barriers that make it difficult to “buy, sell, and transport goods and services across the country.”

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In fact, provincially controlled liquor stores often have wider selections of foreign liquors than out-of-province liquors.

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“It’s easier to get a bottle of wine from Chile than it is (to get one) from British Columbia,” Matthew Holmes, a representative with the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, told Global News in January 2025, right at the beginning of the current trade war.

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Nevertheless, official attempts to reduce internal trade barriers have repeatedly failed to liberalize alcohol sales.

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In November, a meeting of Canada’s first ministers in Yellowknife struck the Canadian Mutual Recognition Agreement on the Sale of Goods, a concord billed as an “unparalleled agreement” to increase interprovincial trade.

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However, the agreement explicitly excluded “alcoholic beverages” from consideration.

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Then, just last month, another meeting of Canadian premiers — this time in Charlottetown  — actually did come to an agreement on interprovincial liquor sales.