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

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.

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).

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).

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.”

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

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.”

According to a recent report by the Toronto Board of Trade , alcohol is “one of the most well-known and visible examples” of these barriers.