Prime Minister Mark Carney has asked Canada\u2019s provinces to end their bans on the retail sale of U.S. alcoholic beverages. It\u2019s a necessary step to getting a trade deal with President Donald Trump across the finish line. <\/p>\n
The response so far indicates he\u2019s succeeding \u2014 but some provincial politicians, still angry at what they see as an American assault on the Canadian economy, won\u2019t encourage consumers to end their personal boycotts of U.S. goods.<\/p>\n
Canada\u2019s provincial governments control alcohol distribution, and most of them have blocked U.S. wine and spirits for more than a year in retaliation for Trump\u2019s tariffs. For U.S. winemakers and distillers, it has been a disaster for export sales. The White House has demanded the booze go back on the shelves. <\/p>\n
All of Canada\u2019s provincial leaders agreed to Carney\u2019s request, according to Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Tony Wakeham. However, the country\u2019s two most populous regions, Ontario and Quebec, had yet to publicly confirm their positions by Thursday. <\/p>\n
Two premiers said a consumer boycott of U.S. alcohol might continue anyway. One of them explicitly encouraged it.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat I would say to Canadians is: leave it there,\u201d Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew said. \u201cLet it sit on the shelf where the Liquor Mart employees will be putting it, and buy the Canadian stuff instead. We\u2019ve done an amazing job sticking together in the face of Donald Trump\u2019s tariff threats, and I think we should continue to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kinew attacked Trump at length, saying: \u201cYou can\u2019t get a good deal with a bad person.\u201d <\/p>\n
But the Manitoba leader said Carney told premiers that any U.S. trade truce hinges on booze being returned. \u201cI wouldn\u2019t say that he was begging us \u2014 but what is the step before begging?\u201d <\/p>\n
A survey by the Angus Reid Institute in July asked Canadians whether they would consider buying U.S. wine, beer and spirits if a trade agreement was reached; 40% said \u201cdefinitely not\u201d and another 19% said \u201cprobably not.\u201d <\/p>\n
Quebec Premier Christine Fr\u00e9chette, whose political party is facing a difficult election fight in the coming weeks, has been publicly noncommittal about the deal Carney and his officials are negotiating. <\/p>\n
If there\u2019s no agreement or delay by Friday night, the U.S. is poised to impose 50% tariffs on hundreds of products from Canada \u2014 including alcohol. <\/p>\n
\u201cThere are things that could change, but whether they\u2019ll change enough to bring good news remains to be seen,\u201d she told reporters Wednesday after some details of the agreement began to emerge. <\/p>\n
Fr\u00e9chette said Thursday that she followed up with \u201ca long phone call\u201d with the prime minister, but still needs to do more analysis.<\/p>\n
The office of Ontario Premier Doug Ford, who has sparred frequently with Trump, hasn\u2019t responded to requests for comment. His province\u2019s liquor agency is one of the world\u2019s largest purchasers of alcoholic beverages.<\/p>\n
Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston told reporters during a press conference Wednesday that the federal government has also asked provinces to ensure they don\u2019t specifically exclude the U.S. in their procurement policies.<\/p>\n
BC Premier David Eby didn\u2019t comment on alcohol specifically, but said he\u2019s \u201chopeful about the possibility of an agreement\u201d to ease trade tensions with the US. Among Canada\u2019s premiers, he has been one of the most forceful advocates for spurning U.S. products and travel.<\/p>\n
Yukon\u2019s premier said the northern territory will lift its restrictions if a trade deal is signed. <\/p>\n
U.S. alcohol was already brought back to stores in Alberta and Saskatchewan, but in the latter province, sales remained 40% below the prior year, CTV News reported. <\/p>\n
Seal writes for Bloomberg. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Prime Minister Mark Carney has asked Canada\u2019s provinces to end their bans on the retail sale of U.S.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":177278,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[56114,26920,17,735,56116,1356,10234,56117,32810,6356,56118,28,56115,56113,40864],"class_list":["post-177277","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-canada","tag-alcohol-distribution","tag-boycott","tag-canada","tag-carney","tag-export-sale","tag-premier","tag-province","tag-request","tag-thursday","tag-trade-agreement","tag-trade-fight","tag-trump","tag-u-s-alcoholic-beverage","tag-u-s-good","tag-u-s-alcohol"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177277","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=177277"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177277\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/177278"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=177277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=177277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=177277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}