Oh sure, the U.S. Supreme Court recognized gay marriage, and people are marvelling at the historic nature of the decision.
But there was another historic move this week to do with fairness and equality and human rights that didn’t get nearly the attention.
In Canada, the province of Nova Scotia decided that its residents can order wine made in another province, have it delivered to their homes and drink it as they see fit.
That’s right. Order wine from another province. Whenever they want.
It warms the heart to imagine Nova Scotians who have been oppressed for generations like most other Canadians by the mystifyingly inane inter-provincial trade barriers opening up their parcels from the Okanagan, or Vancouver Island, or even Niagara, taking out the bottles and pouring the first glasses.
What does it taste like? It tastes like ... freedom.
They could shop before at government liquor stores, which had a limited supply of wines not produced in Nova Scotia. And they could order wine from around the world if they wanted it badly enough. But the opportunity to order from elsewhere in Canada on their own was legally denied to them, as it is in most other provinces.
News of the change broke suddenly, just like when the Berlin Wall came down.
The minister responsible for liquor announced that “Nova Scotians can now import locally grown and produced Canadian wine for personal use without going through the Nova Scotia Liquor Corp.”
It took a lot of dickering with the wine sector and other industry groups, but they put together a set of regulations and opened the doors this week. The change was introduced after the federal government lifted the prohibition on individual importation of wine.
Until then, it was illegal to even carry a bottle of wine over a provincial border.
Nova Scotia becomes the third province to allow direct importation of wine, after B.C. and Manitoba, which allowed it two years ago. Saskatchewan is en route to following suit, and Ontario is talking about reforms as well.
Canadian vintners say the bar against importing wines dates back more than 80 years. Interprovincial trade barriers is one of those eye-glazing topics that is a worthy entry in the “most boring headline ever” sweepstakes.
The politicians who have been trying for decades to do something about them sometimes dwell on the differing standards for occupations, or details about the trucking business.
But the absurdity of how they apply to wine and beer has been used successfully in the past few years to start knocking them down. The absurdity was heightened with developments on trade deals with the European Union and the Trans Pacific Partnership.
It meant Canada was working on free trade with countries across thousands of kilometres of oceans, while barring wine deliveries across provincial borders.
The dusty old Importation of Intoxicating Liquors Act was amended federally to let in a sliver of sanity. Some provinces continued resistance, but the trend for relaxation seems to be building and now three provinces have come to their senses.
After Premier Christy Clark was bounced from her Vancouver riding and found a new seat in Okanagan wine country, she took up the cause with others.
There are still pockets of resistance. Newfoundland last year charged FedEx with illegally importing wine after it delivered a box to a customer there. That prompted FedEx to start refusing interprovincial wine shipments (in cases where they know it’s wine they’re shipping).
B.C. Agriculture Minister Norm Letnick was so moved this week he issued a statement congratulating Nova Scotia.
“I know this is also a priority for the overall industry. Together we are providing B.C. and Nova Scotia consumers with better choice and convenience.”
The amounts being shipped are negligible. But so are the tax revenues that provinces would lose if they gave up on the barriers and let people buy wherever they want.
Ontario — where they can order B.C. wine while we can’t order Ontario wine — remains the big block at this point. But in the next year or so there will be a Martin Luther King Jr. “I have a dream” moment, and that barrier will fall.
Let freedom ring!
