April 9, 2024 • 54 mins
Episode 60: Matt and Taylor are joined by Ben Stewart. Ben is the Founder of Quails' Gate Winery from West Kelowna, BC, who's been in the wine business for almost 45 years. Born and raised in West Kelowna, Ben has also been MLA Kelowna West since 2018, and is a Transportation & Infrastructure Critic in the BC legislative assembly.
Ben is here to discuss: → How the bad weather events are impacting the wineries in the Okanagan and the future of wineries in the region. → The wine and beer war happening between BC and Alberta. → The legislation changes happening with BC real estate and the importance of getting involved in your community and holding governments accountable.
Quail's Gate Winery Website: www.quailsgate.com
Ben Stewart's Instagram: @benstewartmla
Ben Stewart's LinkedIn: @BenStewart
The Kelowna Real Estate Podcast is brought to you by Century 21 Assurance Realty, the gold standard in real estate. To learn more, visit: www.c21kelowna.ca
Matt Glen's Website: www.mattglen.ca
Matt Glen's Email: Matt.glen@century21.ca
Matt Glen's Instagram: @mattglenrealestate
Taylor Atkinson's Website: www.VentureMortgages.com
Taylor Atkinson's Email: Taylor@VentureMortgages.com
Taylor Atkinson's Instagram: @VentureMortgages
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
back to the Kelowna Real EstatePodcast.
I'm your mortgage broker host,Taylor And I'm your real estate
agent host, Matt Glenn.
What's happening, Just enjoying
another day in the busy life ofbrokering.
Matt, how about you?Yeah, busy day of agenting.
Subjects came off last night.
I have at least three new listings
coming up.
I have a client coming in as soon
as I finish recording this to signanother listing.
So it seems to be heating up, atleast on the listing front.
(00:22):
I've got seven closing this monthand six next month and yeah, a few
more kind of in the works.
So it's steady.
Yeah.
Lenders are busy.
Yeah.
I've kind of had my head in the
sand in the last couple of days,but you've got some breaking news,
some more updates for us.
What do we Yeah.
I've kind of Well, yeah.
So not entirely breaking, but VC's
new flipping tax will beretroactive.
So if you purchase property in2023 or 2024, it can apply.
(00:45):
It comes into effect at the startof the year, though, so January
1st.
So if you are going to make a huge
gain, it might be worth trying tosell this year.
Also, it will apply to pre-salecontracts at the time of the
signing.
We kind of thought this would
happen.
So you sign a contract for a
pre-sale.
If it's been two years and you
flip it, it's fine.
You don't get dinged with the tax.
But if you buy an assignment offsomebody, then that time starts
(01:06):
then.
There's also on the flipping tax,
there's a $20,000 exemption on theflipping tax.
So basically the first $100,000that you make off your flip is tax
exempt.
And also if you add a flip and put
a basement suite in, it's taxexempt.
So that's that.
What do you think, Taylor?
What's your first thoughts onthat?
I'm just biting my tongue, man.
I'm positive today.
You're retroactively stung orwhat?
I think retroactively is absoluteinsanity.
It's like if someone's driving 50in a 50 zone and then the cop
(01:29):
pulls them over and says, oh,sorry, it's actually 40.
We're just changing it.
And like, I'm positive today,
Matt.
Nobody can bring me down.
awesome.
Yeah.
It honestly is like you play bythe rules and then the rules
change after you did somethingthat's honestly kind of irritating
also it just feels like everysingle week we come on the show we
have a new law or a new rule totalk about like my god the real
(01:52):
estate industry is just gettingsmacked right now we're getting
tired of talking about it i'm surepeople are getting tired of
listening to it.
But you know, I mean, it keeps us
in business.
That's why we have a podcast,
right?If nothing changed, then we'd have
nothing to report.
Well, also, I was thinking too,
like if the real estate is so hotthat you have to add in just
endless rules to do anything totame it, and it's still going
crazy.
Like, man, maybe it's just worth
(02:13):
something.
You know, like, my God.
Well, to try and distance ourselfand bring in a third party,
unbiased, very professional,analytical person, we are bringing
back by popular demand, BrendanAugmentson, BCREA chief economist.
Yeah.
So that will be recorded on the
rate announcement, which will betomorrow when this gets released
for Bank of Canada rateannouncement.
And we'll try and get that out toyou as fast as we can so we can
(02:36):
get his thoughts on the trajectoryof Bank of Canada rate.
But also he's provided somereports recently that show that
these legislation changes are notgoing to achieve what the
government wants.
So yeah, really awesome, brilliant
mind to bring on and kind of allowhim to dissect it further than
Matt and I just putting analogiesabout speeding in a 50 zone.
Yeah.
I saw him on Global News this
(02:57):
morning talking about the flippingtax and you're right, drills down
on that from what I saw, but we'llget to the bottom.
We'll get his very deepestopinions on the show.
And then speaking about moreamazing guests today, we're having
on Ben Stewart, which I'm suremost people know him but if you
don't yeah whalesgate winery oneof the founders mla yeah bc united
he's very involved in the westcolonna and colonna community just
bc in general he's kind of allover the place we yeah bc to have
(03:22):
somebody on from the wine industrythat knew what they were talking
about like how hard has been hitthey had that bad weather event
that destroyed like up to 80 or90% of all the vines and the
Okanagan.
And then also our mini war, our
wine and beer war with Alberta andall the legislation changes that's
happening with housing.
So Ben Stewart was really the
perfect guest for us to have on totalk about all these issues.
(03:44):
And it was awesome.
Yeah.
Insightful guy.
Yeah.
You Yeah.
You know, we have a lot of these
guests on that.
I don't know, me personally, I
feel like we shouldn't be allowedto talk to, you know, that I hold
them up on a pedestal and he's oneof those guys where it's like,
man, the history that he's seen inKelowna and has been part of
developing.
I think he was minister of
agriculture as well.
Like he's just so involved in such
(04:05):
a large scope.
It's just so fun to talk to these
guys.
And private sector and the public
sector.
So yeah, it really was perfect for
what we need to talk about rightnow to kind of ease our fears.
So yeah, I everyone Definitely.
This show, like every show is
sponsored by the best brokers intown, Century 21 Insurance Realty.
A lot going on here.
We just had a big acquisition from
(04:27):
a lot of agents from Sutton cameover.
It's been awesome.
I was asked to speak at the
introductory meeting and yeah,we're really happy to have that
on.
If you're an agent looking to
revitalize your business orsomehow get ahead in this crazy
market and take advantage of allthese rule changes, I think
Century 21 is worth looking at.
Set up a meeting with Max or
myself or Dean and talk about it.
I think it would really help a lot
(04:49):
of people kind of working with ateam and not so alone yeah it
gives you full access to everyepisode that we record as well so
you can listen to that becausethat's not public knowledge to
everyone yeah it comes with themembership yeah i think you guys
will enjoy the show today you knowlisten while you're driving or
hey, you know what?Get in the mood, crack a bottle of
a nice Pinot from Quailsgate andYeah.
And also one more thing, Beninvited us to have wine with him
(05:11):
after the show.
So we know it was a good episode.
Yeah.
We got to take him up on that.
Yeah, we do.
We told him we were going to, and
we got him.
So yeah.
Maybe once he gets to know us alittle bit more, he'll rescind
that invitation.
That's what the wine is first and
last meeting.
Okay.
Well, enjoy the show, guys.
And yeah, we got a lot of good
(05:32):
guests coming up.
So stay tuned.
Welcome to the show, Ben Stewart.
Thank you so much for joining us
today.
Thanks so often.
Yeah, it's a to be here.
We like to start our show with
just kind of what does yourperfect Friday look like?
What gives you energy?What makes you productive?
What kind of gets you out of thebed and leading into the weekend?
What You know what, as an MLA, I'dhave to say that if we, you know,
(05:55):
just kind of resolve some of thethings that are, you know,
constantly the office isconfronted with, with constituent
issues, whether it's healthcarerules, red tape permits, you know,
all of those types of things.
It's really a good day if on a
Friday we can sit back and we hadone today even, just the whole
ability to kind of know thatyou're making a difference.
You know, I usually am up at aboutthe same time every day and
heading towards the weekend isusually an opportunity for me to
(06:17):
either attend an event in thecommunity.
A week from now, I'll be attendingan Easter egg hunt up at Kalinni
Beach.
But I think more importantly, as
the weather turns to spring, it'salways nice.
I mean, everything's starting togrow and rapidly, you know, you
don't see it if you're not lookingclosely at how the buds are coming
out.
And, you know, my early things
(06:38):
like magnolias and stuff aroundthe house are all getting ready to
pop. And of course, this warmweather, you know, it's helping.
And I hope that the cold weatherhas decided to, you know, take a
rest.
So it stays warm at least for a
while?Well, it's an important thing
because in the springtime, usuallywe're worried about spring frost
in the grape industry.
And I usually figure that the
threat of spring frost is passedby about May 1st.
(07:00):
It often is way earlier than that,like we get out of it.
But this year, especially with thedamage that we experienced in
early January, we had aprecipitous drop in temperature of
almost 25 degrees.
And then it went cold and stayed
cold for about five or six days.
We're looking at how things are
going to come out.
And the heat in the ground and
then to the vines will help usdetermine what's our best course
(07:21):
of action and how we can try toget the vines through the season
if there's going to be replantingnecessary, which there's a lot of
that underway already.
But I think that it's important.
And there's a lot of that underwayalready.
But I think that, you know, it'simportant and there's a lot of
things.
I mean, legislation that's in
(07:42):
front of the house, as you're wellaware, the current government has
chosen to use kind of, I'd say, astick rather than a carrot
approach, which has been, youknow, kind of heavy handed in
terms of things like zoning, shortterm rentals, lots of things that
are people are not very happyabout.
And I think that there is adifferent approach and I'm always
more of a, you know, kind of acarrot.
(08:02):
What can we do to incentivizecommunities?
Incentivize.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, maybe we kind of break this
show into two parts and focus alittle bit on the wine industry,
like we were just speaking aboutwith the climate through this
winter, and then maybe leadinginto some of the government
legislation.
So for those of our listeners that
don't know, are you a founder, thefounder of Quailsgate?
Your family's been involved in itfor four generations.
So yeah, I've been around WestKelowna for a very long time and
(08:23):
love Quailsgate.
The wine's amazing.
And your restaurant there isincredible.
Yeah.
My wife and I celebrated our
anniversary there this year and itwas top notch.
What kind of happened this winter?I know you touched on it to just
like the general consumer.
It didn't seem like an overly cold
winter, but was it so warm?And then that massive drop in
temperature just kind of shockedthe vines.
And that's why we had such asubstantial My wife I think that
(08:44):
that's exactly what it was, isthat, you know, we had a very
mild, warm, you know, we finishedharvest.
It was not late.
The vines were properly mature.
And it was kind of, they getlulled into thinking that, you
know, they don't have to doanything more.
But when you go from plus fivedown to minus 18 in a period of 24
hours, that type of shift I'veonly seen once before in 1985.
(09:05):
And we were out pruning and, youthe vines the sap was running and
it was in But needless to say,know, already, February.
it ended up that the vines didsustain significant damage.
And that really comes from, youknow, plants being fooled into
thinking that, you know, theirheat is a big factor, what happens
in the vines.
And I think that that's what we're
facing.
And it is unprecedented in terms
(09:26):
of the amount of damage from whatI've seen.
Having walked around my own homeblock, which is right across the
street from Quails Gate, I didn'tfind a live butt.
And that's a really seriousconcern.
Now, it doesn't mean that plantsdon't have an ability to recover.
And that's what we seriousconcern.
it Now, doesn't mean that plantsdon't have an ability to recover.
(09:47):
And that's what we're going to bewaiting till probably the end of
May before we really get the truesense of how much damage.
And when the leaves come out andthe shoots, they will likely have
no fruit on them at all.
So that's what we're looking at.
Hopefully, the best case scenariois that the plants survive.
We have wood that comes out and wecan retrain that.
And then we'll be able to get apartial crop next year and then
(10:10):
get them back to their fullproduction the following season,
barring any other disasters.
what I was going to ask.
So this is more than just a oneseason off.
It's going to take a few years torebound from this.
And are all your vineyards in WestKelowna?
Do you have any down south inSoyuz?
Yeah, primarily a large portion ofour vineyard is located right at
the winery.
On the home block, we have about
125 acres.
We farm about four or five other
vineyards in the neighborhood,which bring us up about another 70
(10:33):
acres.
And we have 200 acres over in
South Kelowna.
And we have 200 acres over in
South Kelowna.
And then we have about three or
four vineyards all over in Asuya.
So we farm a substantial amount of
acreage in diverse conditions.
And I would say from the reports
I've heard from the managementteam is that they haven't found
anything to be different in any ofthe locations.
(10:53):
So it's not really a viticulturalproblem.
That's my next So it's across theSo it's not really a viticultural
That's my next question.
question.
locations.
problem.
So it's across the board.
Two years December ago, of 22,
there was a cold event that wasquite long in duration around
Christmas time.
And that particular damage caused
significant damage, especially inSimilkameen where they were
devastated.
Most growers found that they were
down about 50% of their averageyields in 2023.
(11:16):
Now in the North Okanagan, kind ofnorth of, I'd say, Naramata and
Summerland, there was an event in21 that also caused a crop
production.
So when you have vines that have
been weakened by, you know,damage, etc., they're always
trying to make up the differenceand try to figure out, I mean,
that's their job is to try toreproduce and do what they do.
(11:41):
So there's been these sustainedevents, mostly caused by cold
weather.
Some of them, like the ones that I
talked about in the Similkameen,they were colder than minus 30.
Those are temperatures that mostgrowers throw up their hands when
they hear that type oftemperature.
And it's my understanding from thepeople that I do know in the
Similkameen that there's a fairamount of replanting that's having
to occur from the 2022 vintage.
And I don't know where they got to
in this vintage because I haven'thad the benefit or luxury of
(12:04):
traveling to that area this year.
But I would say that it's a big
setback.
And we've had other vintages.
Our father, Richard Stewart, spenta lot of time experimenting and
researching grape varieties.
And when he first started out, he
started with typical Labrascaslike Welch's Grape Juice or
Concord.
Those are very durable and hearty.
But of course, the industry wantedto make better wine.
(12:25):
And so he joined up with theCapozis, believe it or not, and
they planted two vineyards.
One where Burring Alla is today,
and the other one in West Kelowna,and they planted about 350 acres.
But they imported new vines fromNew York State.
And those vines included many ofwhat they call the French hybrids,
which are a crossing of La Brescawith vinifera or vice versa.
(12:47):
So what's happened is that thosevarieties were where the industry
went from about 1962 until freetrade agreement in 1987.
And in that period of time, therewas lots of research being done on
vinifera.
And my dad was a big part of that.
And I worked with him.
I was sent to Washington State as
a young teenager to drive down andpick up plants.
And anyways, we did all of thiswork in the 70s.
(13:09):
And I can tell you that when Ifirst started making wine, I
started making wine with all ofthis cornucopia of different
hybrids that my dad had plantedbecause he had all these
experimental blocks.
hybrids that my dad had planted
because he had all theseexperimental blocks.
And mostly what I found out wasthat the wine tasted terrible.
And so we abandoned that.
(13:30):
But I made a wine with a guy,
formal naval officer, Don Allen inWest Kelowna.
And he and I made some Pinot Noirin 1980 that was unbelievable.
So I immediately started plantingPinot Noir, which subsequently led
me to getting a letter from ourwinery of the day, which was
called St. Michelle Wines, thatthey weren't going to buy any of
(13:51):
those red grapes that we wereplanting.
I was convinced and I ended upgrowing it and selling to Cedar
Creek's predecessor, Uniac,Heinle, Geringer Brothers, Grey
Monk.
And so I was kind of one of the
anomalies where I grew betterquality grapes, but it was mostly
in trying to figure out what to doand how to grow the quality that
the wineries needed to lift thevarieties.
But as I was starting to say, mydad went through winters in 64,
(14:14):
68, even prior to that, 49, therewas one he talked about, which of
course I wasn't alive then, but hetalked about how when they were
out pruning the trees, you couldhear the branches in the orchards
cracking and breaking.
That's how severe it was.
And I think 49 or 50 is when thelake froze over.
So I haven't seen the lake reallyfreeze over like that.
So let's be thankful that thathasn't happened.
(14:35):
You know, that's part of farming.
That's the perseverance you need
and the tenacity that you need tohave.
If you're going to do it andyou're going to do it right,
you've got to be willing to havesome setbacks.
And as I said earlier, the winebusiness is about the long game,
not the short game.
You got to work at it.
You don't just make a wine thateverybody's falling all over right
(14:59):
out of the gate.
Sometimes people accidentally
maybe do.
I would say that it's much better
now that I've been, you know,almost 50 years in this business
growing and making wine andlooking back on what we've
accomplished.
And, you know, it's about
consistency.
And I see a very bright future
still in the long haul for theOkanagan wine about the varieties
of grapes?Is there some that are better than
(15:19):
others?I was at another winery and they
mentioned that that happened, thatthis event might change the region
where more growers are growingcertain kinds or kind of change
what we grow.
Are you seeing that in your
experience?Well, I think for the most part,
the growers that are planting areplanting varieties that we have a
proof and track record in.
You know, I mentioned Pinot Noir,
(15:40):
and that was something that Ilatched on to after that 1980
making of wine with Don Allen.
You know, we experimented with
Chardonnay.
We've done some things that we
just recently, we ripped out aboutfive acres of Cabernet Sauvignon
that ended up being planted on thehome block.
And it was good, but was itfantastic or great?
I think it was always nip and tuckto get it ripe.
And that always pushes things tothe end of the season.
(16:02):
So in talking with our winemaker,we made the uncomfortable decision
to take those out and we're goingto replant with varieties that we
know will have better resilience.
So Pinot Noir again, probably some
more Chardonnay, some Syrah, whichwe've been very successful with.
And there's varieties that I'dlike to plant if I could grow
them.
But at the end of the day, you've
got to find the right site.
(16:25):
So I think that that's part of a
maturing industry is finding whatworks best in that particular
site.
A lot of people make the mistake
of thinking that heat equalsquality, and that's a complete
fallacy.
If you look in Europe and you look
at countries that I extensivelytraveled in and did research in
before getting into this in a bigway, France, Germany, Italy, and
they have such diverse regionsfrom north to south, that you can
(16:45):
look at the Okanagan the same way.
I mean, what grows in Oliver and
Asuyas is going to be different.
Now, winter aside, they can ripen
grapes that take longer.
They start earlier.
And, you know, I can relate thatto whether it's peaches or table
grapes we used to grow.
We always were behind Oliver and
Asuyas when it came to being firstto market.
(17:07):
And so it's interesting how themarkets change, even with the
cherry crops now.
People are actually looking at,
you know, Jell-O's Fruits, DavidGein and the work he's done.
He's planting in areas where mostpeople wouldn't have thought
possible, but he's looking forlater cherries.
So all the U.S., all of that warmclimate cherries are out of the
system.
And he's the dominant player,
(17:28):
especially when it comes to LunarNew Year, which I spent some time
in China.
And I can tell you, it is a huge
deal in Asia.
When you have red fruit that comes
in in late August or earlySeptember, you can ask whatever
price you want.
And so it's an important
distinction about the Valley.
And we're just how old my
grandfather came here 110 yearsago or 125 years ago.
(17:50):
And we're still you find I mean,obviously, you feel there's still
a lot of growth for the wineindustry.
But I guess for somebody that'snewer in the industry or wants to
start their own vineyard, is thecost of land too expensive?
Like it seems like a very hardindustry to be in.
Do you have to be fairly wellestablished to be successful?
Or is it not as volatile as itseems?
(18:12):
I guess, what would you do if youwere starting out, you know, brand
new Well, I believe in livingwithin your means.
And I think that if you'restarting out, if you're really
determined, and there is anopportunity, sometimes, you know,
looking at family and other peoplelike that that are willing to
believe and invest in that.
As long as they understand that,
you know, there's no five yearreturn on this business.
(18:35):
You've got to be in it for 10, 15years to get to that point where
the cash flow is coming in.
You have the consistency and the
wines and then, you and thenyou're paying back the debt that
you may have acquired on the land.
But in the end term, if there's an
opportunity to buy good land andit makes sense, if you're looking
at the land price and you're goingto say, oh yeah, I'm going to make
(18:59):
5% return on that land, whichwould be probably low considering
today's interest rates, I thinkthat the situation is that you
probably have to look at itdifferently than that.
It can be very stable andrewarding in terms of the
satisfaction you get.
But if you're looking at it just
as a complete play on return, it'sprobably not the place to start
(19:19):
out.
is a passion project.
You got to love what you're doing.
When I mentioned that I was
selling those Pinot Noir grapes tothe other small wineries in the
Valley, there's a handful ofpeople that had that passion that
started out in the industry.
And I was fortunate to be
introduced to them right at theirvery starting point.
And some of them have passed on,but I think what it is, is that
(19:40):
the industry has developed somuch.
And I'll give you the best exampleis what we used to call September
Fest.
We were trying to get people to
come to the valley for tourism inSeptember and October when it was
dead quiet because they'd leaveafter summer and then they'd go
home.
So it was people like Trudy and
George Heiss and others, but theywere too instrumental in the
Okanagan Wine Festival to helpbuild that.
And now our bigger problem is, youknow, what do we do in the slow
(20:04):
months in November and January?You know, and you look at the
diversity of products that arebeing produced here that are
finding their way intorestaurants.
I think if I was down at thePenticton Farmer's Market, where
my son lives in Penticton, pickingup some Hivology honey that is
like, it's amazing.
I know it's not the only ones, but
the diversity of what can be grownin this valley, it's not
limitless, but I can tell you thatthere's a lot of people that
(20:26):
really do some great things.
So it adds to the tourism and more
about a year-round tourismopportunity for people.
So that's the difference.
When George and Trudy started out,
they were looking at a businessthat really from May long weekend
until September long weekend, thatwas their window to selling.
And then they had the liquor boardand other people like that.
So it's changed a lot.
Well, I guess that's kind of my
(20:48):
next question.
And it may segue more into the MLA
government topics with obviouslyrecent legislation changes on
short term rentals.
Like what profit margin is built
for you guys as an industry ontourism?
Are the recent decisions going tobe very impactful in terms of wine
tasting tours, people buying yourproduct from the actual vendor
directly, or are now we looking atmore exporting more of that wine?
How does that look for guys?Well, the existence of a small
(21:10):
wine region like the Okanagan andSt. Milcomaine, Fraser Valley, and
even Vancouver Island, the GulfIslands, these are very small
areas in terms of their overallscope and what they have to work
with.
Even a winery of our size where
we're farming about 400 plusacres, we find it difficult to
supply product in Canada to someof the markets like Ontario and
Quebec.
We've actually had to just exit
(21:30):
those markets because of thesupply issues we've faced over the
last two years.
They're lower margin.
The margins that really make ussurvive and keep people employed,
and really the expertise that weemploy, is because of the farm
gate sales and what we do at thefarm gate.
Hence, the reason why a lot of thewineries have restaurants or
picnicking areas.
They have alternative areas to
keep people there.
(21:51):
So, wine clubs have become
something that came into the newsrecently.
You heard about Alberta's decisionto cut all BC wines off.
I want to get your opinion onYeah.
Yes.
I mean, take a small winery that
could be in East Kelowna thatrelies on the fact that people
discover them, they love theirwines, and then they say, well,
how do I find these?Well, they're too small to sell
(22:11):
into Alberta through the system.
The LCB is set up there.
It's a good system.
It's different than BC.
And so the only real way that theycan do it the way that Alberta
wants to do it is they physicallyhave to come to the winery and
pick it up and transport it backas a sale that occurred in BC.
We tried to change that whenChristy Clark was the premier and
(22:36):
we opened up British Columbia towines from every other province,
Quebec, New Brunswick, NovaScotia, let alone Ontario,
bringing wines in tax-free intoour marketplace, as well as
selling through our liquor board.
And some of them tried, but I
think at the end of the day,Alberta has been kind of an
outlier.
And I find it completely unfair.
(22:57):
One of the things that they'vebeen telling our government is
that they want to have access forcraft spirits and beers into the
British Columbia market.
Well, you know, the craft
distillery business in BritishColumbia and the craft beer
business is very much regulated bylike the wine authority.
They have rules that mean thatthey have to create agricultural
products in British Columbia.
(23:17):
And I'm thinking of the story I
visited about 10 years ago as theMinister of Agriculture.
It's outside of Comox Valleycalled Shelter Point.
They produce everything rightthere.
That's the whole intent.
And Alberta, I don't think they
have any rules or regulations.
And we'd be happy to welcome them
if they had things that promotedthat.
But we're not going to toleratethe fact that they can just import
(23:40):
from a cheap source.
They can get whatever products
they need to manufacture spiritsand have that classified as
Alberta craft distillers and thenimport into the province and give
them shelf space.
So this is part of what's gone on
with the BQA over the last 35, 40years since we started that.
It's been a slow, steady climb tomake it so that we are consistent
and people know that the productsare authentic British Columbia
(24:01):
products.
They're not something that, you
know, we didn't just buy in somegrapes from, you know, Washington
State, manufacture them here andcall them Right.
I guess going back to thevineyards struggling this year,
for the end consumer, are we justgoing to see less product on the
shelves?We won't import from anywhere else
then?I think in this particular case,
this is an event that none of us,even when we were writing the
(24:21):
rules for VQA, We never foresawthis.
We always believed that therewould be the durability.
And I mean, when we first started,the first thing we started doing
was trying to initiate exportsales because we thought we had
way too many grapes in the ground.
Now you can't find a grape that
goes for even the best years inthe last few.
(24:43):
So I think that bringing in fruitfrom outside of British Columbia,
this is a very new experience, andI know it's being discussed right
now.
And I've had many discussions with
the minister responsible forliquor regulations about how we
could do this.
And I said, it really has to be on
an interim, short-term basis.
(25:04):
And what we're going to lose if we
don't do this is we're going tolose the talent.
And I know this is alreadyhappening.
There has been people that havebeen let go from positions.
And these are people that havedecades of experience here in the
Valley.
And the industry needs those
people and needs to keep, youknow, the engine running on the
(25:25):
grape industry.
And, you know, if you look around,
there's 461 land-based wineries.
There's only three wineries that
commercially import and makeproduct here from imported fruit.
And that's because they were inthe business long before we came
up with the estate winerylegislation.
Been some consolidation in that,but it's not the area that's
growing.
Even, you know, the best of the
commercial wineries, they'reproudest of their products that
(25:48):
they sell that they produce fromdomestic supply.
So we're all wanting the samething, but we don't want to lose
people.
And we want to make certain that
just because of this event, whichhas been very serious, we can get
through this.
I think that's the So going back
to Alberta, Ben, what should theBC government or what can and
(26:08):
should we be doing to push backagainst this?
Is there anything we should do?Well, I think that the BC
government is perplexed by whyAlberta would do this.
And I'll give you another unknownor little known fact is that
Alberta has a private distributionsystem entirely.
They closed their liquor storesback about 30 years ago and made
it so that anybody could get aliquor license.
And they immediately went to like800 or 900 licenses.
(26:30):
They have more products or SKUs inAlberta than any other
jurisdiction in Canada.
Ontario even, are buying products
from Alberta that are coming in totheir jurisdiction and they're
being sold as if it was legal.
But frankly, if you're going to
follow Alberta's methodology inthis, they're basically violating
other liquor jurisdictions.
So I hate to say it, but I think
Alberta might be in for a roughride with the Canadian Association
(26:52):
of Liquor Jurisdictions to makecertain that they're looking in
their own backyard before theystart, you know, calling out BC
small wineries.
I mean, I even checked on what
Quails Gate's selling.
It's a fraction of what we
produce.
You know, it's a few hundred cases
versus, you know, we make tens ofthousands.
So we've stopped shipping toAlberta because of this perceived
inequity.
If anything, I think that they're
(27:12):
probably looking for somethingelse.
And I don't know, maybe they don'tlike our policy in British
Columbia on carbon tax or, youknow, oil and gas, whatever it is.
Well, maybe walk us through kindof your role as MLA and what
you're trying to achieve in thenext few years, because obviously
it's a pretty dynamic role now.
(27:33):
Well, I've had the good fortune of
serving in government for almost15 years and been minister many
times over.
Today, currently, I'm a critic, a
shadow minister for tourism andtrade.
I've had other critic roles.
But one of the things that we're
trying to do is make certain wehold the government accountable.
And that's what the oppositionparties do in a situation where
(27:53):
you have government.
Do they listen?
Well, sometimes.
You know, I mean, surprisingly, I
had a call from the Minister ofHousing yesterday about an event
that's going on in Kelowna to dealwith one of the BC housing
projects.
There's a structural issue with
the downtown building that's goingup that's very high.
Kelowna, you know, I mean, whenyou're building two and three
story walk-up apartments, thosearen't quite the same foundations
(28:14):
in the geotechnical work thatneeds to be done with buildings
that are over 40 stories.
And so there is an impact.
And so this is impacting residentsin the downtown area, whether it's
homes or apartments orcondominiums.
So we were talking about that.
Usually I hear from them about
what the cities are deciding to dowith short-term rentals and
whether they like the rules ordon't like them.
(28:46):
I would say that my goal is to bethoughtful and long-term in terms
of what it is we're trying to do.
I say that meaning that some of
the recent changes that have beenbrought in through legislation.
Last November, we had quite anumber of bills that went through
in terms of housing.
I mean, there is a housing
shortage, but why is that shortagethere?
It's caused by, in my opinion, thefact that you need to incentivize
(29:06):
and make certain that things arehappening in the sense that
development is happening.
Now, in a lot of cases, prior to
all of these rules being changed,and I would say using sledgehammer
when maybe the carrot approachwould have been more desirable, I
think a lot of communities werestruggling with trying to get land
use planning done.
I have to commend Kelowna because
at UVCM, they brought out theirnew program that's using
(29:27):
artificial intelligence to helpmake it easier for people that
have the correct zoning to beingable to get to a building permit
very quickly.
They offered it for free right
around British Columbia and therest of the country.
It's phenomenal.
And I told Doug Gilchrist that I
think it's probably one of themost forward-looking things I've
seen a municipality do in mylifetime.
(29:48):
But on the other hand, the idea ofimposing on an entire municipality
the idea that all of a sudden, youknow, you can put six lots on an
individual single-family site, Idon't think that that's very
appropriate in terms of, you know,the form and character.
And that kind of takes away whatlocal government is supposed to be
(30:11):
doing.
So the problem really, in my
opinion, is that immigration inthe country has skyrocketed.
Premier Eby and I talked aboutthis at the end of session.
We had about an hour on a planeflight together, and we were
talking about the impacts and howcould we really deal with this?
They feel that they've been forcedinto this partially because of the
allowance of over half a millionnew immigrants coming into Canada
(30:33):
every year.
That's a staggering number.
That's a doubling in the last twoor three years.
You can't do that without having aplace for these people to stay.
So I think that it's a combinationof even though there was a
shortage of maybe availableworkers the right age and things
like that, you can't do it withouthaving enough capacity.
And we basically dropped the ball.
(30:53):
And I think that both federal and
provincial governments needed tobe incentivizing.
What were they doing with citieslike Kelowna and other communities
to help them really createready-to-go projects funded
properly and get out of the way.
There's so much red tape.
I mean, frankly, the red tapethat's been layered on the
building industry, it'sstaggering.
I'm surprised by how much a persquare foot cost is.
And I'm sure in your line of work,you probably know it far better
(31:17):
than I do, but I have a colleaguewho is in the building industry
and we're constantly amazed by allof these layered on costs, let
alone taxes that have been addedon to just everyday products.
There's been 32 new or increasedtaxes in the last seven years.
You know, it adds up and itdoesn't matter.
You know, we just are reflectingon the former prime minister's
(31:38):
passing, but he brought in theGST, which was a value added tax.
And I can't tell you that valueadded taxes make a lot of sense
and keep the taxes, the layeringon and the abuse that goes on.
Because even now, the PST on everylast aspect is being applied on a
piece of construction.
If we want to lower costs, we need
to reduce costs that areduplicated and layered on.
(32:01):
We need to make certain thatthings are efficient and, you
know, try to streamline things.
So in my remaining, you know, time
as MLA, I would like to think thatI could help the government see
the light.
But anyways, I'm working it.
So if BC United gets back inpower, like, are we going to be
reversing a lot of these things?Are we going to be adjusting them?
(32:23):
Like what's the plan?That's what I was going to are we
going to be reversing ask., like,a lot of these things?
Are we going to be adjusting them?what's the plan?
Like, That's what I was going toask, because, like, how easy is it
to reverse bills and taxes oncethey're already passed?
All you have to do is bring in thelegislation.
When I first got elected withGordon Campbell in 2009, we went
(32:44):
from the polls straight into thelegislature.
And we were doing bills thatsummer that, you know, I was new.
But I can tell you in 2001, whenhe first got elected as premier,
they made it a priority to reducethe costs of doing business and
taxes so that they could get theeconomy running again.
Now, what people fail to realizeis that in 2001, when Gordon
(33:04):
Campbell first got elected, Theprovince of British Columbia was
in last place in Canada in termsof economic activity, the highest
in taxes.
That story is playing out again.
You can't keep doing that.
You can't keep taxing and
expecting that all of theseservices are free.
They cost money.
And I think that it's about the
(33:25):
results.
So Kevin Falcon was in there in
2001.
He was the minister responsible
for red tape production.
And Kevin, of all people, knows
more about what type of red tape.
But I can assure you that the
regulatory things, and I'll giveyou a good example.
Like there's a camp that Iattended up West Side Road as a
kid called Camp Oasey, built in1950.
And they just today were puttingout a news release that they're in
(33:47):
paralysis because of all of thearchaeological digging and
requirements, which means thatthey will physically have to take
the entire site and sift throughand make certain that the
artifacts or whatever might bethere is not, you know, on top of
something that's historicallysignificant.
And I don't blame them, but theprovince should be behind
something like that.
That's a huge community need for
(34:07):
thousands of young children thatspend their summers on Lake
Okanagan, learning skills awayfrom their family.
And the fact is that that can't berebuilt because of increased red
tape.
And it's worse because there's
been suggestions that there'sgoing to be joint land use
decision making, meaning thatanything on the land base will be
approved jointly betweenIndigenous and government bodies.
And it's very difficult to getanything done.
(34:29):
And that's kind of why we haveParliament.
And I mean, as much as the historymight not be palatable to
everybody, the end of the day, thesystem is there, it's well known.
And the fact is that we've beendoing a lot of things to try to
help build economic capacity forespecially First Nations that are
isolated.
And I wouldn't say that locally
there is in that situation.
But I think that the idea that
they don't have the capacity to doall of the permit work that's
required.
So I've got companies that have
been waiting on permits now forfive years to put in or replace
damaged docks after the high waterevent in 2017, can't put new
(34:49):
docks.
I'll give you the best way to
describe this.
The public service was about
360,000 members in 2017.
It's now about 40% higher at
500,000 employees.
And I don't think that the
permitting process is fed up atall.
If anything, it's in paralysisthrough rules.
And frankly, we've got to get outof that.
We've got to make it so thatthere's common sense and practical
(35:09):
things.
So that's what the BC United Party
is about.
It's about results.
We've proven before.
We've lived within our means.
Who could take over a budget of$47 billion with a $3 billion
surplus?And now it's over $80 billion is
what the spend is this year withan $8 billion surplus and a
doubling of the provincial debt.
(35:31):
That's how fast things have
changed at the provincialgovernment.
So I don't know how partisan youwant me to get.
But anyways, these are numbersthat are upsetting because at the
end of the day, my children andgrandchildren are the ones that
are going to be forced to have tosquare that up.
And you can't tax an unanalystsupply.
There's reasons for taxation, butI think that we've got to be
(35:52):
realistic.
We've got to have an economy that
supports it.
I mean, it's so dismal at this
point.
I wonder if you even want to take
it over, really.
But like, how do you recover from
this deficit?Like, obviously, you know, there's
a very strategic plan in place.
But I guess, what's the forecast?
Like, how long do you feel thatit's going to take to recover from
(36:16):
the damage that's been done?things in balance.
The debt was something that weworked And on.
I know Mike DeYoung, who is ourlast finance minister in 2017, one
of his last acts as financeminister was to sign off on paying
the last of the provincialoperating debt off and making
certain that that was completelypaid off.
And it's kind of disheartening forMike, whose brother lives in West
(36:39):
Kelowna, to see that they've goneright back to where they were
before.
I'll give you the best example.
By not having to pay interest ondebt means that we have that extra
money to put into things to makethings more affordable, seniors,
healthcare, and things like that.
We increase spending every year.
There was not a year where wedidn't increase education,
(37:01):
healthcare.
We came out with all sorts of
great programs for seniors aboutaffordable housing and things like
that.
But I still think, you know,
there's things that we couldalways have done better, I guess,
or longer term.
I think that the shortage of
housing and looking atdemographics is difficult for
people to kind of anticipate that.
But I do think that we had a
(37:23):
really good jobs plan that wasdone under Christy Clark and
Shirley Bond.
And that jobs plan showed where we
needed workers to develop the LNGindustry and all of the
infrastructure that we needed,whether it was ports or cities and
a lot of projects that we actuallyhad planned on.
I'll give you a good example.
Mills Hospital in Terrace, right
outside of Kitimat, is just comingto completion.
(37:45):
It's a massive increase inhealthcare up in the Northwest.
And I would say that, you know,it's only part of the plan, but
you've got to continue to do thatwith schools and the hospitals and
all the other things.
And I know that there's lots of
things that could be done, but Ialways remember my dad's best
(38:08):
friend, Bill Bennett, telling methat, you know, Ben, you need to
make certain you spread the moneyout and spend it within your
means, not to spend it all atonce.
You know, and they did some bigprojects.
They did the Coquihalla Highwaysback in the 80s.
And I mean, my goodness, wherewould we be without the
Coquihalla?Yeah, It's funny.
The new generation doesn't evenremember that there was a toll
(38:31):
there.
No. We always used to meet at
Tollbooth to go to Vancouver.
Now the new generation are like,
what's that?No. Yeah, you're right.
Well, there was even food trucksthere, you know, and the washrooms
and things like that.
Yeah.
Anyways, you're right.
It was kind of a breaking point on
that highway.
And I was talking to Ian Payton,
who's the representative for DeltaSouth.
And Ian was telling me when theMassey Tunnel was open, his dad
(38:53):
used to have a little ticket bookand there was tolls on the Massey
Tunnel to go underneath.
And he was a farmer.
But it makes you think about whenyou're going to travel.
It's going to cost me, I don'tknow, 50 cents or a dollar,
(39:25):
whatever the tolls were.
Even the Lake Okanagan Bridge had
tolls on it when I was a kid.
Oh, really?
I didn't know that.
So what happens is, you know,
they're short-lived, but withtolls, we got things done.
And I give you the best example isthe Portman Bridge, which was one
of the things that opened up whenI was first a minister.
It costs a lot of money and wecouldn't even find companies in
British Columbia that had thecapacity to build that size of
bridge, a 10-lane bridge spanningthe Fraser River.
And so we had a corporation thathired international companies that
(39:48):
built an amazing bridge, but therewas a toll on it.
But that was to fund the $3billion it cost to build that
bridge and pay it off.
And I think that it was still a
good way to make people thinktwice about, you know, using it.
Whereas now, I mean, I look on,you know, global in the morning
and I look at the congestion andI'm thinking, geez, I'm glad I
(40:11):
don't live there.
But I have some regrets about
maybe the people that were facedwith having to pay that toll every
day.
And we needed to come up with a
different way to maybe toll it,maybe just because of the
connection to Vancouver and allthe North Shore and stuff like
that.
But at the end of the day, it's
completely off.
And that cost us about $300 or
(40:31):
$400 million a year in revenue.
So you can see right away, you can
take tolls off, which makescongestion go up and increases the
debt.
I mean, all it's done is taken off
the, you know, $3 or $4 a tripthat it did cost at the time and
made it, you know, frustrating.
So I chaired the Regional
(40:52):
Transportation Advisory Committeewhen Falcon was Transportation
Minister.
We went all over the province
between really Highway 24, Albertaborder, south to the border to
Hope.
And we did town halls and we
listened and people told us theywanted better highways and they
were willing to pay through atoll.
They were happy with that.
And that's what we advised the
minister at the time, to continuealong that pathway, not to
eliminate them just for the sakeof, you know, kind of not having a
(41:13):
toll.
So anyways, hasn't been listened
to and it's off now.
Ben, we do have to be conscious of
your time.
We appreciate everything so far.
We're just going to go into ourwrap-up questions if that's okay
with you.
Sure.
If you could buy one property inthe Okanagan in the next 12
months, what would it be?That's a question.
One property?I'm working on renovating a
property that I've owned for thelast 40 some years now.
(41:36):
And all I can say is that I'vegone around whether I should buy
elsewhere or renovate.
I've come to the conclusion to
renovate.
You know, as you get older, I have
to say that I told Rob Chattner,he's building a big development or
a company that's bought things offhim up in Lakeview Village.
And I said, Rob, I'd buy in therebecause as I get older, I'm going
to need something where I don'thave to maintain the landscaping
(41:58):
and all the other things.
But I'd be just as happy downtown
in Kelowna.
I mean, my goodness, the downtown
has changed so dramatically.
And I still, you know, look at
where I grew up and, you know, wespent a lot of time in South
Kelowna where my parents had theirfinal home.
And you know what?It's about what you need for a
lifestyle.
But I love the areas.
I was out in Lake Countryrecently, up in Vernon the other
day.
And there's so much interesting
(42:19):
properties and diversity.
I talked to Blair Ireland, who's
the mayor of Lake Country, andthey've got challenges.
But I tell you what, he's got agreat and interesting community.
West Kelowna's got fabulous newdevelopments.
Peachland, the mayor there istelling us about how much
development they've got going on.
I'll tell you what I like about
the Okanagan.
I like the fact that I'm on the
(42:39):
south-facing slope of MountBushry.
And if it's south-facing, I likethat because we get about two
weeks less of winter than peoplethat live in the Mission.
Nothing against the mission, butI'm just telling you that the fact
is that I can see the snow whenit's long since melted on our side
of the lake.
of the lake.
That's why you didn't want to comeover today and do this in person.
(43:00):
Hey, you're scared of the you'rescared of the winter.
No, no, no. I plan my trips toKelowna very, you know, carefully.
And I usually try to have two orthree stops and tomorrow afternoon
I have to do a few events.
And actually one of them is right
out near where you are.
And so anyways, you know, I try to
be thoughtful.
I mean, I don't try to be another
extra vehicle on the road.
(43:21):
And for a lot of what I do, I
can't take a bus.
So anyways, but my entire family,
like my sisters and brothers andmother all live in Kelowna and
Southeast Kelowna and stuff likethat.
So if I want to see them, I haveto travel to that side of the lake
unless I'm inviting them over tothe west side.
You're going to add to the mayhem.
(43:43):
All going to add to the mayhem.
All right.
What's some advice that you would
tell your 20-year-old self?think I was fortunate.
I mean, I just grew up farming andit was hard work.
I mean, I started right out ofschool, working hard, getting a
job, and then I think work hard.
I mean, I think that that was a
part of it, trying to understand.
I had the good fortune of having
(44:07):
probably more mature friendsbecause of the work environment.
I was in the banking industry andI think it made me grow up in a
hurry.
I say that meaning that, you know,
if you just put your head down andyou're disciplined, you know,
you'll get there.
And I'll give you a good example.
My first house I bought inMedicine Hat cost me twenty eight
and a half thousand dollars.
And my dad lent me the down
(44:29):
payment of I think it was abouttwenty five hundred dollars.
Maybe it was less than that.
But anyways, at the time, you
know, it seemed like aninsurmountable amount, whatever my
mortgage was.
And anyways, I got through that.
I made a little bit, not much,maybe a couple of thousand
dollars, then bought in Calgary.
And I had with Citibank, I had a
mortgage at five and eightpercent.
And they said, those are thegolden handcuffs.
Now that you know, you're in themanagement team of Citibank.
And anyways, I made a little bitthere and then came to Kelowna and
(44:52):
bought my grandparents' old housethat my dad had acquired.
And we hit a little bit of a bumpon the market and bought the farm
I live anyways, on today.
So I think the thing about it is
as long as you can afford it andyou got a little bit extra leeway
in your cash flow, you know, Iwould be making investments.
Don't be turned off.
I mean, people talk about high
(45:13):
interest rates.
My goodness, when I started out, I
remember George Heist telling methat his mortgage at Farm Credit
was about 16.5%.
And I thought, George, how are you
ever going to pay that back?So when I started at Quails Gate,
my mortgage was at 12.75.
And I thought I'd almost died and
gone to heaven.
And now, we've got people that
still talk about mortgages thatare at 2%.
(45:35):
And I'm thinking, you guys areliving a dream that probably won't
be soon repeated.
Yeah.
What is your favorite charity andhow do you give back?
I give to a lot in the sense thatI'm a big supporter.
And it all started, I was at ablood donor clinic and Ian
Greenwood, who is the CEO andpresident of Sunrite BC Tree
Fruits.
I knew him because of the fact we
shipped fruit to the packinghouses and he knew me well.
So he said, why don't you considercoming onto the hospital
(45:57):
foundation?And the hospital was much
different in those days.
So I joined the hospital
foundation.
I worked with them as a volunteer
for six or eight years.
We fundraised for all sorts of
things.
But the last project that I did
was the Cancer Care Center.
And I hate to tell you, that was
over 30 years ago.
And I think our goal at the time
was about seven and a half milliondollars.
But we did it successfully.
That cancer clinic, you know, I
(46:18):
mean, I know so many people thathave had to use it.
But I was on the college boardfundraising for the Trade Center.
There's such a need for that.
And I know that Sir Was, Lois and
Cliff are actively working on theproject for the Recreation Center.
And Cliff has been after me foryears to help get government
support.
But finally, the leadership at the
college said, that's it, we'refighting the bullet.
I served on UBC's board.
And which one is the favorite?
Every year it comes down to, Iguess, where the greatest need.
(46:40):
And I'll tell you, the lastsizable contribution was in
Movember, which I noticed that youguys might have a little bit of a
mustache.
We're pre-growing.
Yeah.
I think this year I raised about
$8,000 for Movember.
So I thought I was doing pretty
good.
I'm in the platinum club.
So how's that sound?Awesome.
I love that.
Then how could our show, how could
Taylor and I or our listener helpyou?
(47:01):
Well, I think the thing about itis that I was reading a poll last
night and I don't spend a lot oftime reading polls, but it was one
given to me recently by one of oursupporters that just said, Hey,
listen, you should look at this.
I think people have to get really
engaged.
Like all of the problems that we
face politically, you know, we cando so much better, but they got to
(47:22):
get engaged and they got tochallenge what they're hearing.
What most people are kind ofhearing right now is marketing
communications.
I mean, re-announcements of
projects and stuff like that.
If you look at the details and the
results, unfortunately, theresults are not very good.
I'll give you a good example.
One of the first things that was
announced by the government wasthe new Patala Bridge.
The Patala Bridge is barely evenhalf constructed.
(47:43):
And that's seven years.
That's longer than the Second
World War took to win.
Government's got to get things
done in a more timely manner.
And results matter.
So I would say that yourlisteners, you know, need to
question and challenge the statusquo, make certain that they're
working.
And I would love nothing more than
the government to get out of theway of the cities and the Okanagan
getting rid of, you know, therules that they've created,
short-term rentals.
I mean, I think the city of
(48:05):
Kelowna was amazing when they cameup with specific areas where
short-term rentals weredesignated, et cetera, and albeit
the government's reversed that andthe city's accepted that.
But what are we doing to build thehotel room capacity in the
Okanagan?Why aren't we getting more hotels,
et cetera?Mostly because of red tape and
extra costs.
The city's got to get out of the
way.
Vancouver, even Penticton's got a
(48:26):
convention center.
So I'd like to think that, you
know, Kelowna could visualizeitself.
I'll tell you, my dad was on thewaterfront redevelopment project
when John Hindle was the mayorback in 1980.
They visualized not only theGrand, but they visualized a
number of hotels, conventioncenter in there.
Part of it's done, but we'restruggling to kind of continue
with that vision.
We have to see ourselves as being
(48:46):
a destination.
The airport is certainly on that
track.
And frankly, I think the
short-term rental market wouldbalance out and have less issues
for people if it was in step withkind of the availability of other
rooms and also not necessarily bein areas where they shouldn't be.
I don't think short-term rentalsin neighborhoods always work
because you get people that arehere for different reasons and it
(49:07):
makes it very difficult for theresidents of a neighborhood.
So I think that short-term rentalshave to be properly designated and
the city needs to clear the decks,even though I gave them kudos on
their AI project, et cetera.
They can still do better, but we
want to measure the results.
Yeah.
I love that.
I want to ask one more question
before we let you go.
Probably going to be the hardest
question you have today.
What is your favorite bottle of
(49:29):
wine?Great question, Taylor.
You know what?One thing I can tell you, Taylor,
about bottles of wine is that Ialways thought that there was
going to be this wine that I wasjust going to love if I tasted it.
And there's so many wines that aregreat and they're all so
different.
To be honest, I mean, that's what
drives me and the rest of theQuailsgate team is we want
(49:52):
everybody to think that the wineswe produce are that great bottle
of wine, but we know that there'salways room to kind of constantly
improve.
Did you hear about the tasting
that Angela Lyons, our VP ofmarketing and sales, she brought
in a wine judging panel, gave themabout eight or nine wines of some
of these wines were worldrenowned.
Some of them were in the thousandsof dollars a bottle, which means
that they probably are just invery short supply, all blind
(50:13):
tasted.
And what amazed me is that
Quailsgate was in the not at thetop in every case, top, but it
consistently scored in that.
And we had international judges.
So what that tells me is thatthere's a lot of great wines out
there.
I'm still a value price shopper.
I still go out to wineries and Ibuy lots of wine.
I could give you a list of wines.
They probably need your Corselet
down in Costin and What a greatLaughingstock, help.
(50:35):
Carameus.
winery.
which I know is owned by Arterra,but David and Cynthia did a great
job there.
And I love wines that my friends
at Kettle Valley, Cedar Creek.
I mean, I buy wine all over the
place and I love it when Idiscover something that somebody
else's wine.
So it's an adventure and a
journey.
awesome.
I love the support.
(50:55):
Thank you so much for your time.
Thanks for coming on.
We look forward to having a glass
of wine with you at some stagewhen we cross paths.
Okay, let's that.
That's a good way to talk the next
version of Yeah, absolutely.
Thank you so much.
It's been great talking to youThanks too.
for including me.
Yeah, no problem.
Yeah, appreciate it.
back to the Kelowna Real EstatePodcast.
I'm your mortgage broker host,Taylor And I'm your real estate
agent host, Matt Glenn.
What's happening, Just enjoying
another day in the busy life ofbrokering.
Matt, how about you?Yeah, busy day of agenting.
Subjects came off last night.
I have at least three new listings
coming up.
I have a client coming in as soon
as I finish recording this to signanother listing.
So it seems to be heating up, atleast on the listing front.
(00:22):
I've got seven closing this monthand six next month and yeah, a few
more kind of in the works.
So it's steady.
Yeah.
Lenders are busy.
Yeah.
I've kind of had my head in the
sand in the last couple of days,but you've got some breaking news,
some more updates for us.
What do we Yeah.
I've kind of Well, yeah.
So not entirely breaking, but VC's
new flipping tax will beretroactive.
So if you purchase property in2023 or 2024, it can apply.
(00:45):
It comes into effect at the startof the year, though, so January
1st.
So if you are going to make a huge
gain, it might be worth trying tosell this year.
Also, it will apply to pre-salecontracts at the time of the
signing.
We kind of thought this would
happen.
So you sign a contract for a
pre-sale.
If it's been two years and you
flip it, it's fine.
You don't get dinged with the tax.
But if you buy an assignment offsomebody, then that time starts
(01:06):
then.
There's also on the flipping tax,
there's a $20,000 exemption on theflipping tax.
So basically the first $100,000that you make off your flip is tax
exempt.
And also if you add a flip and put
a basement suite in, it's taxexempt.
So that's that.
What do you think, Taylor?
What's your first thoughts onthat?
I'm just biting my tongue, man.
I'm positive today.
You're retroactively stung orwhat?
I think retroactively is absoluteinsanity.
It's like if someone's driving 50in a 50 zone and then the cop
(01:29):
pulls them over and says, oh,sorry, it's actually 40.
We're just changing it.
And like, I'm positive today,
Matt.
Nobody can bring me down.
awesome.
Yeah.
It honestly is like you play bythe rules and then the rules
change after you did somethingthat's honestly kind of irritating
also it just feels like everysingle week we come on the show we
have a new law or a new rule totalk about like my god the real
(01:52):
estate industry is just gettingsmacked right now we're getting
tired of talking about it i'm surepeople are getting tired of
listening to it.
But you know, I mean, it keeps us
in business.
That's why we have a podcast,
right?If nothing changed, then we'd have
nothing to report.
Well, also, I was thinking too,
like if the real estate is so hotthat you have to add in just
endless rules to do anything totame it, and it's still going
crazy.
Like, man, maybe it's just worth
(02:13):
something.
You know, like, my God.
Well, to try and distance ourselfand bring in a third party,
unbiased, very professional,analytical person, we are bringing
back by popular demand, BrendanAugmentson, BCREA chief economist.
Yeah.
So that will be recorded on the
rate announcement, which will betomorrow when this gets released
for Bank of Canada rateannouncement.
And we'll try and get that out toyou as fast as we can so we can
(02:36):
get his thoughts on the trajectoryof Bank of Canada rate.
But also he's provided somereports recently that show that
these legislation changes are notgoing to achieve what the
government wants.
So yeah, really awesome, brilliant
mind to bring on and kind of allowhim to dissect it further than
Matt and I just putting analogiesabout speeding in a 50 zone.
Yeah.
I saw him on Global News this
(02:57):
morning talking about the flippingtax and you're right, drills down
on that from what I saw, but we'llget to the bottom.
We'll get his very deepestopinions on the show.
And then speaking about moreamazing guests today, we're having
on Ben Stewart, which I'm suremost people know him but if you
don't yeah whalesgate winery oneof the founders mla yeah bc united
he's very involved in the westcolonna and colonna community just
bc in general he's kind of allover the place we yeah bc to have
(03:22):
somebody on from the wine industrythat knew what they were talking
about like how hard has been hitthey had that bad weather event
that destroyed like up to 80 or90% of all the vines and the
Okanagan.
And then also our mini war, our
wine and beer war with Alberta andall the legislation changes that's
happening with housing.
So Ben Stewart was really the
perfect guest for us to have on totalk about all these issues.
(03:44):
And it was awesome.
Yeah.
Insightful guy.
Yeah.
You Yeah.
You know, we have a lot of these
guests on that.
I don't know, me personally, I
feel like we shouldn't be allowedto talk to, you know, that I hold
them up on a pedestal and he's oneof those guys where it's like,
man, the history that he's seen inKelowna and has been part of
developing.
I think he was minister of
agriculture as well.
Like he's just so involved in such
(04:05):
a large scope.
It's just so fun to talk to these
guys.
And private sector and the public
sector.
So yeah, it really was perfect for
what we need to talk about rightnow to kind of ease our fears.
So yeah, I everyone Definitely.
This show, like every show is
sponsored by the best brokers intown, Century 21 Insurance Realty.
A lot going on here.
We just had a big acquisition from
(04:27):
a lot of agents from Sutton cameover.
It's been awesome.
I was asked to speak at the
introductory meeting and yeah,we're really happy to have that
on.
If you're an agent looking to
revitalize your business orsomehow get ahead in this crazy
market and take advantage of allthese rule changes, I think
Century 21 is worth looking at.
Set up a meeting with Max or
myself or Dean and talk about it.
I think it would really help a lot
(04:49):
of people kind of working with ateam and not so alone yeah it
gives you full access to everyepisode that we record as well so
you can listen to that becausethat's not public knowledge to
everyone yeah it comes with themembership yeah i think you guys
will enjoy the show today you knowlisten while you're driving or
hey, you know what?Get in the mood, crack a bottle of
a nice Pinot from Quailsgate andYeah.
And also one more thing, Beninvited us to have wine with him
(05:11):
after the show.
So we know it was a good episode.
Yeah.
We got to take him up on that.
Yeah, we do.
We told him we were going to, and
we got him.
So yeah.
Maybe once he gets to know us alittle bit more, he'll rescind
that invitation.
That's what the wine is first and
last meeting.
Okay.
Well, enjoy the show, guys.
And yeah, we got a lot of good
(05:32):
guests coming up.
So stay tuned.
Welcome to the show, Ben Stewart.
Thank you so much for joining us
today.
Thanks so often.
Yeah, it's a to be here.
We like to start our show with
just kind of what does yourperfect Friday look like?
What gives you energy?What makes you productive?
What kind of gets you out of thebed and leading into the weekend?
What You know what, as an MLA, I'dhave to say that if we, you know,
(05:55):
just kind of resolve some of thethings that are, you know,
constantly the office isconfronted with, with constituent
issues, whether it's healthcarerules, red tape permits, you know,
all of those types of things.
It's really a good day if on a
Friday we can sit back and we hadone today even, just the whole
ability to kind of know thatyou're making a difference.
You know, I usually am up at aboutthe same time every day and
heading towards the weekend isusually an opportunity for me to
(06:17):
either attend an event in thecommunity.
A week from now, I'll be attendingan Easter egg hunt up at Kalinni
Beach.
But I think more importantly, as
the weather turns to spring, it'salways nice.
I mean, everything's starting togrow and rapidly, you know, you
don't see it if you're not lookingclosely at how the buds are coming
out.
And, you know, my early things
(06:38):
like magnolias and stuff aroundthe house are all getting ready to
pop. And of course, this warmweather, you know, it's helping.
And I hope that the cold weatherhas decided to, you know, take a
rest.
So it stays warm at least for a
while?Well, it's an important thing
because in the springtime, usuallywe're worried about spring frost
in the grape industry.
And I usually figure that the
threat of spring frost is passedby about May 1st.
(07:00):
It often is way earlier than that,like we get out of it.
But this year, especially with thedamage that we experienced in
early January, we had aprecipitous drop in temperature of
almost 25 degrees.
And then it went cold and stayed
cold for about five or six days.
We're looking at how things are
going to come out.
And the heat in the ground and
then to the vines will help usdetermine what's our best course
(07:21):
of action and how we can try toget the vines through the season
if there's going to be replantingnecessary, which there's a lot of
that underway already.
But I think that it's important.
And there's a lot of that underwayalready.
But I think that, you know, it'simportant and there's a lot of
things.
I mean, legislation that's in
(07:42):
front of the house, as you're wellaware, the current government has
chosen to use kind of, I'd say, astick rather than a carrot
approach, which has been, youknow, kind of heavy handed in
terms of things like zoning, shortterm rentals, lots of things that
are people are not very happyabout.
And I think that there is adifferent approach and I'm always
more of a, you know, kind of acarrot.
(08:02):
What can we do to incentivizecommunities?
Incentivize.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, maybe we kind of break this
show into two parts and focus alittle bit on the wine industry,
like we were just speaking aboutwith the climate through this
winter, and then maybe leadinginto some of the government
legislation.
So for those of our listeners that
don't know, are you a founder, thefounder of Quailsgate?
Your family's been involved in itfor four generations.
So yeah, I've been around WestKelowna for a very long time and
(08:23):
love Quailsgate.
The wine's amazing.
And your restaurant there isincredible.
Yeah.
My wife and I celebrated our
anniversary there this year and itwas top notch.
What kind of happened this winter?I know you touched on it to just
like the general consumer.
It didn't seem like an overly cold
winter, but was it so warm?And then that massive drop in
temperature just kind of shockedthe vines.
And that's why we had such asubstantial My wife I think that
(08:44):
that's exactly what it was, isthat, you know, we had a very
mild, warm, you know, we finishedharvest.
It was not late.
The vines were properly mature.
And it was kind of, they getlulled into thinking that, you
know, they don't have to doanything more.
But when you go from plus fivedown to minus 18 in a period of 24
hours, that type of shift I'veonly seen once before in 1985.
(09:05):
And we were out pruning and, youthe vines the sap was running and
it was in But needless to say,know, already, February.
it ended up that the vines didsustain significant damage.
And that really comes from, youknow, plants being fooled into
thinking that, you know, theirheat is a big factor, what happens
in the vines.
And I think that that's what we're
facing.
And it is unprecedented in terms
(09:26):
of the amount of damage from whatI've seen.
Having walked around my own homeblock, which is right across the
street from Quails Gate, I didn'tfind a live butt.
And that's a really seriousconcern.
Now, it doesn't mean that plantsdon't have an ability to recover.
And that's what we seriousconcern.
it Now, doesn't mean that plantsdon't have an ability to recover.
(09:47):
And that's what we're going to bewaiting till probably the end of
May before we really get the truesense of how much damage.
And when the leaves come out andthe shoots, they will likely have
no fruit on them at all.
So that's what we're looking at.
Hopefully, the best case scenariois that the plants survive.
We have wood that comes out and wecan retrain that.
And then we'll be able to get apartial crop next year and then
(10:10):
get them back to their fullproduction the following season,
barring any other disasters.
what I was going to ask.
So this is more than just a oneseason off.
It's going to take a few years torebound from this.
And are all your vineyards in WestKelowna?
Do you have any down south inSoyuz?
Yeah, primarily a large portion ofour vineyard is located right at
the winery.
On the home block, we have about
125 acres.
We farm about four or five other
vineyards in the neighborhood,which bring us up about another 70
(10:33):
acres.
And we have 200 acres over in
South Kelowna.
And we have 200 acres over in
South Kelowna.
And then we have about three or
four vineyards all over in Asuya.
So we farm a substantial amount of
acreage in diverse conditions.
And I would say from the reports
I've heard from the managementteam is that they haven't found
anything to be different in any ofthe locations.
(10:53):
So it's not really a viticulturalproblem.
That's my next So it's across theSo it's not really a viticultural
That's my next question.
question.
locations.
problem.
So it's across the board.
Two years December ago, of 22,
there was a cold event that wasquite long in duration around
Christmas time.
And that particular damage caused
significant damage, especially inSimilkameen where they were
devastated.
Most growers found that they were
down about 50% of their averageyields in 2023.
(11:16):
Now in the North Okanagan, kind ofnorth of, I'd say, Naramata and
Summerland, there was an event in21 that also caused a crop
production.
So when you have vines that have
been weakened by, you know,damage, etc., they're always
trying to make up the differenceand try to figure out, I mean,
that's their job is to try toreproduce and do what they do.
(11:41):
So there's been these sustainedevents, mostly caused by cold
weather.
Some of them, like the ones that I
talked about in the Similkameen,they were colder than minus 30.
Those are temperatures that mostgrowers throw up their hands when
they hear that type oftemperature.
And it's my understanding from thepeople that I do know in the
Similkameen that there's a fairamount of replanting that's having
to occur from the 2022 vintage.
And I don't know where they got to
in this vintage because I haven'thad the benefit or luxury of
(12:04):
traveling to that area this year.
But I would say that it's a big
setback.
And we've had other vintages.
Our father, Richard Stewart, spenta lot of time experimenting and
researching grape varieties.
And when he first started out, he
started with typical Labrascaslike Welch's Grape Juice or
Concord.
Those are very durable and hearty.
But of course, the industry wantedto make better wine.
(12:25):
And so he joined up with theCapozis, believe it or not, and
they planted two vineyards.
One where Burring Alla is today,
and the other one in West Kelowna,and they planted about 350 acres.
But they imported new vines fromNew York State.
And those vines included many ofwhat they call the French hybrids,
which are a crossing of La Brescawith vinifera or vice versa.
(12:47):
So what's happened is that thosevarieties were where the industry
went from about 1962 until freetrade agreement in 1987.
And in that period of time, therewas lots of research being done on
vinifera.
And my dad was a big part of that.
And I worked with him.
I was sent to Washington State as
a young teenager to drive down andpick up plants.
And anyways, we did all of thiswork in the 70s.
(13:09):
And I can tell you that when Ifirst started making wine, I
started making wine with all ofthis cornucopia of different
hybrids that my dad had plantedbecause he had all these
experimental blocks.
hybrids that my dad had planted
because he had all theseexperimental blocks.
And mostly what I found out wasthat the wine tasted terrible.
And so we abandoned that.
(13:30):
But I made a wine with a guy,
formal naval officer, Don Allen inWest Kelowna.
And he and I made some Pinot Noirin 1980 that was unbelievable.
So I immediately started plantingPinot Noir, which subsequently led
me to getting a letter from ourwinery of the day, which was
called St. Michelle Wines, thatthey weren't going to buy any of
(13:51):
those red grapes that we wereplanting.
I was convinced and I ended upgrowing it and selling to Cedar
Creek's predecessor, Uniac,Heinle, Geringer Brothers, Grey
Monk.
And so I was kind of one of the
anomalies where I grew betterquality grapes, but it was mostly
in trying to figure out what to doand how to grow the quality that
the wineries needed to lift thevarieties.
But as I was starting to say, mydad went through winters in 64,
(14:14):
68, even prior to that, 49, therewas one he talked about, which of
course I wasn't alive then, but hetalked about how when they were
out pruning the trees, you couldhear the branches in the orchards
cracking and breaking.
That's how severe it was.
And I think 49 or 50 is when thelake froze over.
So I haven't seen the lake reallyfreeze over like that.
So let's be thankful that thathasn't happened.
(14:35):
You know, that's part of farming.
That's the perseverance you need
and the tenacity that you need tohave.
If you're going to do it andyou're going to do it right,
you've got to be willing to havesome setbacks.
And as I said earlier, the winebusiness is about the long game,
not the short game.
You got to work at it.
You don't just make a wine thateverybody's falling all over right
(14:59):
out of the gate.
Sometimes people accidentally
maybe do.
I would say that it's much better
now that I've been, you know,almost 50 years in this business
growing and making wine andlooking back on what we've
accomplished.
And, you know, it's about
consistency.
And I see a very bright future
still in the long haul for theOkanagan wine about the varieties
of grapes?Is there some that are better than
(15:19):
others?I was at another winery and they
mentioned that that happened, thatthis event might change the region
where more growers are growingcertain kinds or kind of change
what we grow.
Are you seeing that in your
experience?Well, I think for the most part,
the growers that are planting areplanting varieties that we have a
proof and track record in.
You know, I mentioned Pinot Noir,
(15:40):
and that was something that Ilatched on to after that 1980
making of wine with Don Allen.
You know, we experimented with
Chardonnay.
We've done some things that we
just recently, we ripped out aboutfive acres of Cabernet Sauvignon
that ended up being planted on thehome block.
And it was good, but was itfantastic or great?
I think it was always nip and tuckto get it ripe.
And that always pushes things tothe end of the season.
(16:02):
So in talking with our winemaker,we made the uncomfortable decision
to take those out and we're goingto replant with varieties that we
know will have better resilience.
So Pinot Noir again, probably some
more Chardonnay, some Syrah, whichwe've been very successful with.
And there's varieties that I'dlike to plant if I could grow
them.
But at the end of the day, you've
got to find the right site.
(16:25):
So I think that that's part of a
maturing industry is finding whatworks best in that particular
site.
A lot of people make the mistake
of thinking that heat equalsquality, and that's a complete
fallacy.
If you look in Europe and you look
at countries that I extensivelytraveled in and did research in
before getting into this in a bigway, France, Germany, Italy, and
they have such diverse regionsfrom north to south, that you can
(16:45):
look at the Okanagan the same way.
I mean, what grows in Oliver and
Asuyas is going to be different.
Now, winter aside, they can ripen
grapes that take longer.
They start earlier.
And, you know, I can relate thatto whether it's peaches or table
grapes we used to grow.
We always were behind Oliver and
Asuyas when it came to being firstto market.
(17:07):
And so it's interesting how themarkets change, even with the
cherry crops now.
People are actually looking at,
you know, Jell-O's Fruits, DavidGein and the work he's done.
He's planting in areas where mostpeople wouldn't have thought
possible, but he's looking forlater cherries.
So all the U.S., all of that warmclimate cherries are out of the
system.
And he's the dominant player,
(17:28):
especially when it comes to LunarNew Year, which I spent some time
in China.
And I can tell you, it is a huge
deal in Asia.
When you have red fruit that comes
in in late August or earlySeptember, you can ask whatever
price you want.
And so it's an important
distinction about the Valley.
And we're just how old my
grandfather came here 110 yearsago or 125 years ago.
(17:50):
And we're still you find I mean,obviously, you feel there's still
a lot of growth for the wineindustry.
But I guess for somebody that'snewer in the industry or wants to
start their own vineyard, is thecost of land too expensive?
Like it seems like a very hardindustry to be in.
Do you have to be fairly wellestablished to be successful?
Or is it not as volatile as itseems?
(18:12):
I guess, what would you do if youwere starting out, you know, brand
new Well, I believe in livingwithin your means.
And I think that if you'restarting out, if you're really
determined, and there is anopportunity, sometimes, you know,
looking at family and other peoplelike that that are willing to
believe and invest in that.
As long as they understand that,
you know, there's no five yearreturn on this business.
(18:35):
You've got to be in it for 10, 15years to get to that point where
the cash flow is coming in.
You have the consistency and the
wines and then, you and thenyou're paying back the debt that
you may have acquired on the land.
But in the end term, if there's an
opportunity to buy good land andit makes sense, if you're looking
at the land price and you're goingto say, oh yeah, I'm going to make
(18:59):
5% return on that land, whichwould be probably low considering
today's interest rates, I thinkthat the situation is that you
probably have to look at itdifferently than that.
It can be very stable andrewarding in terms of the
satisfaction you get.
But if you're looking at it just
as a complete play on return, it'sprobably not the place to start
(19:19):
out.
is a passion project.
You got to love what you're doing.
When I mentioned that I was
selling those Pinot Noir grapes tothe other small wineries in the
Valley, there's a handful ofpeople that had that passion that
started out in the industry.
And I was fortunate to be
introduced to them right at theirvery starting point.
And some of them have passed on,but I think what it is, is that
(19:40):
the industry has developed somuch.
And I'll give you the best exampleis what we used to call September
Fest.
We were trying to get people to
come to the valley for tourism inSeptember and October when it was
dead quiet because they'd leaveafter summer and then they'd go
home.
So it was people like Trudy and
George Heiss and others, but theywere too instrumental in the
Okanagan Wine Festival to helpbuild that.
And now our bigger problem is, youknow, what do we do in the slow
(20:04):
months in November and January?You know, and you look at the
diversity of products that arebeing produced here that are
finding their way intorestaurants.
I think if I was down at thePenticton Farmer's Market, where
my son lives in Penticton, pickingup some Hivology honey that is
like, it's amazing.
I know it's not the only ones, but
the diversity of what can be grownin this valley, it's not
limitless, but I can tell you thatthere's a lot of people that
(20:26):
really do some great things.
So it adds to the tourism and more
about a year-round tourismopportunity for people.
So that's the difference.
When George and Trudy started out,
they were looking at a businessthat really from May long weekend
until September long weekend, thatwas their window to selling.
And then they had the liquor boardand other people like that.
So it's changed a lot.
Well, I guess that's kind of my
(20:48):
next question.
And it may segue more into the MLA
government topics with obviouslyrecent legislation changes on
short term rentals.
Like what profit margin is built
for you guys as an industry ontourism?
Are the recent decisions going tobe very impactful in terms of wine
tasting tours, people buying yourproduct from the actual vendor
directly, or are now we looking atmore exporting more of that wine?
How does that look for guys?Well, the existence of a small
(21:10):
wine region like the Okanagan andSt. Milcomaine, Fraser Valley, and
even Vancouver Island, the GulfIslands, these are very small
areas in terms of their overallscope and what they have to work
with.
Even a winery of our size where
we're farming about 400 plusacres, we find it difficult to
supply product in Canada to someof the markets like Ontario and
Quebec.
We've actually had to just exit
(21:30):
those markets because of thesupply issues we've faced over the
last two years.
They're lower margin.
The margins that really make ussurvive and keep people employed,
and really the expertise that weemploy, is because of the farm
gate sales and what we do at thefarm gate.
Hence, the reason why a lot of thewineries have restaurants or
picnicking areas.
They have alternative areas to
keep people there.
(21:51):
So, wine clubs have become
something that came into the newsrecently.
You heard about Alberta's decisionto cut all BC wines off.
I want to get your opinion onYeah.
Yes.
I mean, take a small winery that
could be in East Kelowna thatrelies on the fact that people
discover them, they love theirwines, and then they say, well,
how do I find these?Well, they're too small to sell
(22:11):
into Alberta through the system.
The LCB is set up there.
It's a good system.
It's different than BC.
And so the only real way that theycan do it the way that Alberta
wants to do it is they physicallyhave to come to the winery and
pick it up and transport it backas a sale that occurred in BC.
We tried to change that whenChristy Clark was the premier and
(22:36):
we opened up British Columbia towines from every other province,
Quebec, New Brunswick, NovaScotia, let alone Ontario,
bringing wines in tax-free intoour marketplace, as well as
selling through our liquor board.
And some of them tried, but I
think at the end of the day,Alberta has been kind of an
outlier.
And I find it completely unfair.
(22:57):
One of the things that they'vebeen telling our government is
that they want to have access forcraft spirits and beers into the
British Columbia market.
Well, you know, the craft
distillery business in BritishColumbia and the craft beer
business is very much regulated bylike the wine authority.
They have rules that mean thatthey have to create agricultural
products in British Columbia.
(23:17):
And I'm thinking of the story I
visited about 10 years ago as theMinister of Agriculture.
It's outside of Comox Valleycalled Shelter Point.
They produce everything rightthere.
That's the whole intent.
And Alberta, I don't think they
have any rules or regulations.
And we'd be happy to welcome them
if they had things that promotedthat.
But we're not going to toleratethe fact that they can just import
(23:40):
from a cheap source.
They can get whatever products
they need to manufacture spiritsand have that classified as
Alberta craft distillers and thenimport into the province and give
them shelf space.
So this is part of what's gone on
with the BQA over the last 35, 40years since we started that.
It's been a slow, steady climb tomake it so that we are consistent
and people know that the productsare authentic British Columbia
(24:01):
products.
They're not something that, you
know, we didn't just buy in somegrapes from, you know, Washington
State, manufacture them here andcall them Right.
I guess going back to thevineyards struggling this year,
for the end consumer, are we justgoing to see less product on the
shelves?We won't import from anywhere else
then?I think in this particular case,
this is an event that none of us,even when we were writing the
(24:21):
rules for VQA, We never foresawthis.
We always believed that therewould be the durability.
And I mean, when we first started,the first thing we started doing
was trying to initiate exportsales because we thought we had
way too many grapes in the ground.
Now you can't find a grape that
goes for even the best years inthe last few.
(24:43):
So I think that bringing in fruitfrom outside of British Columbia,
this is a very new experience, andI know it's being discussed right
now.
And I've had many discussions with
the minister responsible forliquor regulations about how we
could do this.
And I said, it really has to be on
an interim, short-term basis.
(25:04):
And what we're going to lose if we
don't do this is we're going tolose the talent.
And I know this is alreadyhappening.
There has been people that havebeen let go from positions.
And these are people that havedecades of experience here in the
Valley.
And the industry needs those
people and needs to keep, youknow, the engine running on the
(25:25):
grape industry.
And, you know, if you look around,
there's 461 land-based wineries.
There's only three wineries that
commercially import and makeproduct here from imported fruit.
And that's because they were inthe business long before we came
up with the estate winerylegislation.
Been some consolidation in that,but it's not the area that's
growing.
Even, you know, the best of the
commercial wineries, they'reproudest of their products that
(25:48):
they sell that they produce fromdomestic supply.
So we're all wanting the samething, but we don't want to lose
people.
And we want to make certain that
just because of this event, whichhas been very serious, we can get
through this.
I think that's the So going back
to Alberta, Ben, what should theBC government or what can and
(26:08):
should we be doing to push backagainst this?
Is there anything we should do?Well, I think that the BC
government is perplexed by whyAlberta would do this.
And I'll give you another unknownor little known fact is that
Alberta has a private distributionsystem entirely.
They closed their liquor storesback about 30 years ago and made
it so that anybody could get aliquor license.
And they immediately went to like800 or 900 licenses.
(26:30):
They have more products or SKUs inAlberta than any other
jurisdiction in Canada.
Ontario even, are buying products
from Alberta that are coming in totheir jurisdiction and they're
being sold as if it was legal.
But frankly, if you're going to
follow Alberta's methodology inthis, they're basically violating
other liquor jurisdictions.
So I hate to say it, but I think
Alberta might be in for a roughride with the Canadian Association
(26:52):
of Liquor Jurisdictions to makecertain that they're looking in
their own backyard before theystart, you know, calling out BC
small wineries.
I mean, I even checked on what
Quails Gate's selling.
It's a fraction of what we
produce.
You know, it's a few hundred cases
versus, you know, we make tens ofthousands.
So we've stopped shipping toAlberta because of this perceived
inequity.
If anything, I think that they're
(27:12):
probably looking for somethingelse.
And I don't know, maybe they don'tlike our policy in British
Columbia on carbon tax or, youknow, oil and gas, whatever it is.
Well, maybe walk us through kindof your role as MLA and what
you're trying to achieve in thenext few years, because obviously
it's a pretty dynamic role now.
(27:33):
Well, I've had the good fortune of
serving in government for almost15 years and been minister many
times over.
Today, currently, I'm a critic, a
shadow minister for tourism andtrade.
I've had other critic roles.
But one of the things that we're
trying to do is make certain wehold the government accountable.
And that's what the oppositionparties do in a situation where
(27:53):
you have government.
Do they listen?
Well, sometimes.
You know, I mean, surprisingly, I
had a call from the Minister ofHousing yesterday about an event
that's going on in Kelowna to dealwith one of the BC housing
projects.
There's a structural issue with
the downtown building that's goingup that's very high.
Kelowna, you know, I mean, whenyou're building two and three
story walk-up apartments, thosearen't quite the same foundations
(28:14):
in the geotechnical work thatneeds to be done with buildings
that are over 40 stories.
And so there is an impact.
And so this is impacting residentsin the downtown area, whether it's
homes or apartments orcondominiums.
So we were talking about that.
Usually I hear from them about
what the cities are deciding to dowith short-term rentals and
whether they like the rules ordon't like them.
(28:46):
I would say that my goal is to bethoughtful and long-term in terms
of what it is we're trying to do.
I say that meaning that some of
the recent changes that have beenbrought in through legislation.
Last November, we had quite anumber of bills that went through
in terms of housing.
I mean, there is a housing
shortage, but why is that shortagethere?
It's caused by, in my opinion, thefact that you need to incentivize
(29:06):
and make certain that things arehappening in the sense that
development is happening.
Now, in a lot of cases, prior to
all of these rules being changed,and I would say using sledgehammer
when maybe the carrot approachwould have been more desirable, I
think a lot of communities werestruggling with trying to get land
use planning done.
I have to commend Kelowna because
at UVCM, they brought out theirnew program that's using
(29:27):
artificial intelligence to helpmake it easier for people that
have the correct zoning to beingable to get to a building permit
very quickly.
They offered it for free right
around British Columbia and therest of the country.
It's phenomenal.
And I told Doug Gilchrist that I
think it's probably one of themost forward-looking things I've
seen a municipality do in mylifetime.
(29:48):
But on the other hand, the idea ofimposing on an entire municipality
the idea that all of a sudden, youknow, you can put six lots on an
individual single-family site, Idon't think that that's very
appropriate in terms of, you know,the form and character.
And that kind of takes away whatlocal government is supposed to be
(30:11):
doing.
So the problem really, in my
opinion, is that immigration inthe country has skyrocketed.
Premier Eby and I talked aboutthis at the end of session.
We had about an hour on a planeflight together, and we were
talking about the impacts and howcould we really deal with this?
They feel that they've been forcedinto this partially because of the
allowance of over half a millionnew immigrants coming into Canada
(30:33):
every year.
That's a staggering number.
That's a doubling in the last twoor three years.
You can't do that without having aplace for these people to stay.
So I think that it's a combinationof even though there was a
shortage of maybe availableworkers the right age and things
like that, you can't do it withouthaving enough capacity.
And we basically dropped the ball.
(30:53):
And I think that both federal and
provincial governments needed tobe incentivizing.
What were they doing with citieslike Kelowna and other communities
to help them really createready-to-go projects funded
properly and get out of the way.
There's so much red tape.
I mean, frankly, the red tapethat's been layered on the
building industry, it'sstaggering.
I'm surprised by how much a persquare foot cost is.
And I'm sure in your line of work,you probably know it far better
(31:17):
than I do, but I have a colleaguewho is in the building industry
and we're constantly amazed by allof these layered on costs, let
alone taxes that have been addedon to just everyday products.
There's been 32 new or increasedtaxes in the last seven years.
You know, it adds up and itdoesn't matter.
You know, we just are reflectingon the former prime minister's
(31:38):
passing, but he brought in theGST, which was a value added tax.
And I can't tell you that valueadded taxes make a lot of sense
and keep the taxes, the layeringon and the abuse that goes on.
Because even now, the PST on everylast aspect is being applied on a
piece of construction.
If we want to lower costs, we need
to reduce costs that areduplicated and layered on.
(32:01):
We need to make certain thatthings are efficient and, you
know, try to streamline things.
So in my remaining, you know, time
as MLA, I would like to think thatI could help the government see
the light.
But anyways, I'm working it.
So if BC United gets back inpower, like, are we going to be
reversing a lot of these things?Are we going to be adjusting them?
(32:23):
Like what's the plan?That's what I was going to are we
going to be reversing ask., like,a lot of these things?
Are we going to be adjusting them?what's the plan?
Like, That's what I was going toask, because, like, how easy is it
to reverse bills and taxes oncethey're already passed?
All you have to do is bring in thelegislation.
When I first got elected withGordon Campbell in 2009, we went
(32:44):
from the polls straight into thelegislature.
And we were doing bills thatsummer that, you know, I was new.
But I can tell you in 2001, whenhe first got elected as premier,
they made it a priority to reducethe costs of doing business and
taxes so that they could get theeconomy running again.
Now, what people fail to realizeis that in 2001, when Gordon
(33:04):
Campbell first got elected, Theprovince of British Columbia was
in last place in Canada in termsof economic activity, the highest
in taxes.
That story is playing out again.
You can't keep doing that.
You can't keep taxing and
expecting that all of theseservices are free.
They cost money.
And I think that it's about the
(33:25):
results.
So Kevin Falcon was in there in
2001.
He was the minister responsible
for red tape production.
And Kevin, of all people, knows
more about what type of red tape.
But I can assure you that the
regulatory things, and I'll giveyou a good example.
Like there's a camp that Iattended up West Side Road as a
kid called Camp Oasey, built in1950.
And they just today were puttingout a news release that they're in
(33:47):
paralysis because of all of thearchaeological digging and
requirements, which means thatthey will physically have to take
the entire site and sift throughand make certain that the
artifacts or whatever might bethere is not, you know, on top of
something that's historicallysignificant.
And I don't blame them, but theprovince should be behind
something like that.
That's a huge community need for
(34:07):
thousands of young children thatspend their summers on Lake
Okanagan, learning skills awayfrom their family.
And the fact is that that can't berebuilt because of increased red
tape.
And it's worse because there's
been suggestions that there'sgoing to be joint land use
decision making, meaning thatanything on the land base will be
approved jointly betweenIndigenous and government bodies.
And it's very difficult to getanything done.
(34:29):
And that's kind of why we haveParliament.
And I mean, as much as the historymight not be palatable to
everybody, the end of the day, thesystem is there, it's well known.
And the fact is that we've beendoing a lot of things to try to
help build economic capacity forespecially First Nations that are
isolated.
And I wouldn't say that locally
there is in that situation.
But I think that the idea that
they don't have the capacity to doall of the permit work that's
required.
So I've got companies that have
been waiting on permits now forfive years to put in or replace
damaged docks after the high waterevent in 2017, can't put new
(34:49):
docks.
I'll give you the best way to
describe this.
The public service was about
360,000 members in 2017.
It's now about 40% higher at
500,000 employees.
And I don't think that the
permitting process is fed up atall.
If anything, it's in paralysisthrough rules.
And frankly, we've got to get outof that.
We've got to make it so thatthere's common sense and practical
(35:09):
things.
So that's what the BC United Party
is about.
It's about results.
We've proven before.
We've lived within our means.
Who could take over a budget of$47 billion with a $3 billion
surplus?And now it's over $80 billion is
what the spend is this year withan $8 billion surplus and a
doubling of the provincial debt.
(35:31):
That's how fast things have
changed at the provincialgovernment.
So I don't know how partisan youwant me to get.
But anyways, these are numbersthat are upsetting because at the
end of the day, my children andgrandchildren are the ones that
are going to be forced to have tosquare that up.
And you can't tax an unanalystsupply.
There's reasons for taxation, butI think that we've got to be
(35:52):
realistic.
We've got to have an economy that
supports it.
I mean, it's so dismal at this
point.
I wonder if you even want to take
it over, really.
But like, how do you recover from
this deficit?Like, obviously, you know, there's
a very strategic plan in place.
But I guess, what's the forecast?
Like, how long do you feel thatit's going to take to recover from
(36:16):
the damage that's been done?things in balance.
The debt was something that weworked And on.
I know Mike DeYoung, who is ourlast finance minister in 2017, one
of his last acts as financeminister was to sign off on paying
the last of the provincialoperating debt off and making
certain that that was completelypaid off.
And it's kind of disheartening forMike, whose brother lives in West
(36:39):
Kelowna, to see that they've goneright back to where they were
before.
I'll give you the best example.
By not having to pay interest ondebt means that we have that extra
money to put into things to makethings more affordable, seniors,
healthcare, and things like that.
We increase spending every year.
There was not a year where wedidn't increase education,
(37:01):
healthcare.
We came out with all sorts of
great programs for seniors aboutaffordable housing and things like
that.
But I still think, you know,
there's things that we couldalways have done better, I guess,
or longer term.
I think that the shortage of
housing and looking atdemographics is difficult for
people to kind of anticipate that.
But I do think that we had a
(37:23):
really good jobs plan that wasdone under Christy Clark and
Shirley Bond.
And that jobs plan showed where we
needed workers to develop the LNGindustry and all of the
infrastructure that we needed,whether it was ports or cities and
a lot of projects that we actuallyhad planned on.
I'll give you a good example.
Mills Hospital in Terrace, right
outside of Kitimat, is just comingto completion.
(37:45):
It's a massive increase inhealthcare up in the Northwest.
And I would say that, you know,it's only part of the plan, but
you've got to continue to do thatwith schools and the hospitals and
all the other things.
And I know that there's lots of
things that could be done, but Ialways remember my dad's best
(38:08):
friend, Bill Bennett, telling methat, you know, Ben, you need to
make certain you spread the moneyout and spend it within your
means, not to spend it all atonce.
You know, and they did some bigprojects.
They did the Coquihalla Highwaysback in the 80s.
And I mean, my goodness, wherewould we be without the
Coquihalla?Yeah, It's funny.
The new generation doesn't evenremember that there was a toll
(38:31):
there.
No. We always used to meet at
Tollbooth to go to Vancouver.
Now the new generation are like,
what's that?No. Yeah, you're right.
Well, there was even food trucksthere, you know, and the washrooms
and things like that.
Yeah.
Anyways, you're right.
It was kind of a breaking point on
that highway.
And I was talking to Ian Payton,
who's the representative for DeltaSouth.
And Ian was telling me when theMassey Tunnel was open, his dad
(38:53):
used to have a little ticket bookand there was tolls on the Massey
Tunnel to go underneath.
And he was a farmer.
But it makes you think about whenyou're going to travel.
It's going to cost me, I don'tknow, 50 cents or a dollar,
(39:25):
whatever the tolls were.
Even the Lake Okanagan Bridge had
tolls on it when I was a kid.
Oh, really?
I didn't know that.
So what happens is, you know,
they're short-lived, but withtolls, we got things done.
And I give you the best example isthe Portman Bridge, which was one
of the things that opened up whenI was first a minister.
It costs a lot of money and wecouldn't even find companies in
British Columbia that had thecapacity to build that size of
bridge, a 10-lane bridge spanningthe Fraser River.
And so we had a corporation thathired international companies that
(39:48):
built an amazing bridge, but therewas a toll on it.
But that was to fund the $3billion it cost to build that
bridge and pay it off.
And I think that it was still a
good way to make people thinktwice about, you know, using it.
Whereas now, I mean, I look on,you know, global in the morning
and I look at the congestion andI'm thinking, geez, I'm glad I
(40:11):
don't live there.
But I have some regrets about
maybe the people that were facedwith having to pay that toll every
day.
And we needed to come up with a
different way to maybe toll it,maybe just because of the
connection to Vancouver and allthe North Shore and stuff like
that.
But at the end of the day, it's
completely off.
And that cost us about $300 or
(40:31):
$400 million a year in revenue.
So you can see right away, you can
take tolls off, which makescongestion go up and increases the
debt.
I mean, all it's done is taken off
the, you know, $3 or $4 a tripthat it did cost at the time and
made it, you know, frustrating.
So I chaired the Regional
(40:52):
Transportation Advisory Committeewhen Falcon was Transportation
Minister.
We went all over the province
between really Highway 24, Albertaborder, south to the border to
Hope.
And we did town halls and we
listened and people told us theywanted better highways and they
were willing to pay through atoll.
They were happy with that.
And that's what we advised the
minister at the time, to continuealong that pathway, not to
eliminate them just for the sakeof, you know, kind of not having a
(41:13):
toll.
So anyways, hasn't been listened
to and it's off now.
Ben, we do have to be conscious of
your time.
We appreciate everything so far.
We're just going to go into ourwrap-up questions if that's okay
with you.
Sure.
If you could buy one property inthe Okanagan in the next 12
months, what would it be?That's a question.
One property?I'm working on renovating a
property that I've owned for thelast 40 some years now.
(41:36):
And all I can say is that I'vegone around whether I should buy
elsewhere or renovate.
I've come to the conclusion to
renovate.
You know, as you get older, I have
to say that I told Rob Chattner,he's building a big development or
a company that's bought things offhim up in Lakeview Village.
And I said, Rob, I'd buy in therebecause as I get older, I'm going
to need something where I don'thave to maintain the landscaping
(41:58):
and all the other things.
But I'd be just as happy downtown
in Kelowna.
I mean, my goodness, the downtown
has changed so dramatically.
And I still, you know, look at
where I grew up and, you know, wespent a lot of time in South
Kelowna where my parents had theirfinal home.
And you know what?It's about what you need for a
lifestyle.
But I love the areas.
I was out in Lake Countryrecently, up in Vernon the other
day.
And there's so much interesting
(42:19):
properties and diversity.
I talked to Blair Ireland, who's
the mayor of Lake Country, andthey've got challenges.
But I tell you what, he's got agreat and interesting community.
West Kelowna's got fabulous newdevelopments.
Peachland, the mayor there istelling us about how much
development they've got going on.
I'll tell you what I like about
the Okanagan.
I like the fact that I'm on the
(42:39):
south-facing slope of MountBushry.
And if it's south-facing, I likethat because we get about two
weeks less of winter than peoplethat live in the Mission.
Nothing against the mission, butI'm just telling you that the fact
is that I can see the snow whenit's long since melted on our side
of the lake.
of the lake.
That's why you didn't want to comeover today and do this in person.
(43:00):
Hey, you're scared of the you'rescared of the winter.
No, no, no. I plan my trips toKelowna very, you know, carefully.
And I usually try to have two orthree stops and tomorrow afternoon
I have to do a few events.
And actually one of them is right
out near where you are.
And so anyways, you know, I try to
be thoughtful.
I mean, I don't try to be another
extra vehicle on the road.
(43:21):
And for a lot of what I do, I
can't take a bus.
So anyways, but my entire family,
like my sisters and brothers andmother all live in Kelowna and
Southeast Kelowna and stuff likethat.
So if I want to see them, I haveto travel to that side of the lake
unless I'm inviting them over tothe west side.
You're going to add to the mayhem.
(43:43):
All going to add to the mayhem.
All right.
What's some advice that you would
tell your 20-year-old self?think I was fortunate.
I mean, I just grew up farming andit was hard work.
I mean, I started right out ofschool, working hard, getting a
job, and then I think work hard.
I mean, I think that that was a
part of it, trying to understand.
I had the good fortune of having
(44:07):
probably more mature friendsbecause of the work environment.
I was in the banking industry andI think it made me grow up in a
hurry.
I say that meaning that, you know,
if you just put your head down andyou're disciplined, you know,
you'll get there.
And I'll give you a good example.
My first house I bought inMedicine Hat cost me twenty eight
and a half thousand dollars.
And my dad lent me the down
(44:29):
payment of I think it was abouttwenty five hundred dollars.
Maybe it was less than that.
But anyways, at the time, you
know, it seemed like aninsurmountable amount, whatever my
mortgage was.
And anyways, I got through that.
I made a little bit, not much,maybe a couple of thousand
dollars, then bought in Calgary.
And I had with Citibank, I had a
mortgage at five and eightpercent.
And they said, those are thegolden handcuffs.
Now that you know, you're in themanagement team of Citibank.
And anyways, I made a little bitthere and then came to Kelowna and
(44:52):
bought my grandparents' old housethat my dad had acquired.
And we hit a little bit of a bumpon the market and bought the farm
I live anyways, on today.
So I think the thing about it is
as long as you can afford it andyou got a little bit extra leeway
in your cash flow, you know, Iwould be making investments.
Don't be turned off.
I mean, people talk about high
(45:13):
interest rates.
My goodness, when I started out, I
remember George Heist telling methat his mortgage at Farm Credit
was about 16.5%.
And I thought, George, how are you
ever going to pay that back?So when I started at Quails Gate,
my mortgage was at 12.75.
And I thought I'd almost died and
gone to heaven.
And now, we've got people that
still talk about mortgages thatare at 2%.
(45:35):
And I'm thinking, you guys areliving a dream that probably won't
be soon repeated.
Yeah.
What is your favorite charity andhow do you give back?
I give to a lot in the sense thatI'm a big supporter.
And it all started, I was at ablood donor clinic and Ian
Greenwood, who is the CEO andpresident of Sunrite BC Tree
Fruits.
I knew him because of the fact we
shipped fruit to the packinghouses and he knew me well.
So he said, why don't you considercoming onto the hospital
(45:57):
foundation?And the hospital was much
different in those days.
So I joined the hospital
foundation.
I worked with them as a volunteer
for six or eight years.
We fundraised for all sorts of
things.
But the last project that I did
was the Cancer Care Center.
And I hate to tell you, that was
over 30 years ago.
And I think our goal at the time
was about seven and a half milliondollars.
But we did it successfully.
That cancer clinic, you know, I
(46:18):
mean, I know so many people thathave had to use it.
But I was on the college boardfundraising for the Trade Center.
There's such a need for that.
And I know that Sir Was, Lois and
Cliff are actively working on theproject for the Recreation Center.
And Cliff has been after me foryears to help get government
support.
But finally, the leadership at the
college said, that's it, we'refighting the bullet.
I served on UBC's board.
And which one is the favorite?
Every year it comes down to, Iguess, where the greatest need.
(46:40):
And I'll tell you, the lastsizable contribution was in
Movember, which I noticed that youguys might have a little bit of a
mustache.
We're pre-growing.
Yeah.
I think this year I raised about
$8,000 for Movember.
So I thought I was doing pretty
good.
I'm in the platinum club.
So how's that sound?Awesome.
I love that.
Then how could our show, how could
Taylor and I or our listener helpyou?
(47:01):
Well, I think the thing about itis that I was reading a poll last
night and I don't spend a lot oftime reading polls, but it was one
given to me recently by one of oursupporters that just said, Hey,
listen, you should look at this.
I think people have to get really
engaged.
Like all of the problems that we
face politically, you know, we cando so much better, but they got to
(47:22):
get engaged and they got tochallenge what they're hearing.
What most people are kind ofhearing right now is marketing
communications.
I mean, re-announcements of
projects and stuff like that.
If you look at the details and the
results, unfortunately, theresults are not very good.
I'll give you a good example.
One of the first things that was
announced by the government wasthe new Patala Bridge.
The Patala Bridge is barely evenhalf constructed.
(47:43):
And that's seven years.
That's longer than the Second
World War took to win.
Government's got to get things
done in a more timely manner.
And results matter.
So I would say that yourlisteners, you know, need to
question and challenge the statusquo, make certain that they're
working.
And I would love nothing more than
the government to get out of theway of the cities and the Okanagan
getting rid of, you know, therules that they've created,
short-term rentals.
I mean, I think the city of
(48:05):
Kelowna was amazing when they cameup with specific areas where
short-term rentals weredesignated, et cetera, and albeit
the government's reversed that andthe city's accepted that.
But what are we doing to build thehotel room capacity in the
Okanagan?Why aren't we getting more hotels,
et cetera?Mostly because of red tape and
extra costs.
The city's got to get out of the
way.
Vancouver, even Penticton's got a
(48:26):
convention center.
So I'd like to think that, you
know, Kelowna could visualizeitself.
I'll tell you, my dad was on thewaterfront redevelopment project
when John Hindle was the mayorback in 1980.
They visualized not only theGrand, but they visualized a
number of hotels, conventioncenter in there.
Part of it's done, but we'restruggling to kind of continue
with that vision.
We have to see ourselves as being
(48:46):
a destination.
The airport is certainly on that
track.
And frankly, I think the
short-term rental market wouldbalance out and have less issues
for people if it was in step withkind of the availability of other
rooms and also not necessarily bein areas where they shouldn't be.
I don't think short-term rentalsin neighborhoods always work
because you get people that arehere for different reasons and it
(49:07):
makes it very difficult for theresidents of a neighborhood.
So I think that short-term rentalshave to be properly designated and
the city needs to clear the decks,even though I gave them kudos on
their AI project, et cetera.
They can still do better, but we
want to measure the results.
Yeah.
I love that.
I want to ask one more question
before we let you go.
Probably going to be the hardest
question you have today.
What is your favorite bottle of
(49:29):
wine?Great question, Taylor.
You know what?One thing I can tell you, Taylor,
about bottles of wine is that Ialways thought that there was
going to be this wine that I wasjust going to love if I tasted it.
And there's so many wines that aregreat and they're all so
different.
To be honest, I mean, that's what
drives me and the rest of theQuailsgate team is we want
(49:52):
everybody to think that the wineswe produce are that great bottle
of wine, but we know that there'salways room to kind of constantly
improve.
Did you hear about the tasting
that Angela Lyons, our VP ofmarketing and sales, she brought
in a wine judging panel, gave themabout eight or nine wines of some
of these wines were worldrenowned.
Some of them were in the thousandsof dollars a bottle, which means
that they probably are just invery short supply, all blind
(50:13):
tasted.
And what amazed me is that
Quailsgate was in the not at thetop in every case, top, but it
consistently scored in that.
And we had international judges.
So what that tells me is thatthere's a lot of great wines out
there.
I'm still a value price shopper.
I still go out to wineries and Ibuy lots of wine.
I could give you a list of wines.
They probably need your Corselet
down in Costin and What a greatLaughingstock, help.
(50:35):
Carameus.
winery.
which I know is owned by Arterra,but David and Cynthia did a great
job there.
And I love wines that my friends
at Kettle Valley, Cedar Creek.
I mean, I buy wine all over the
place and I love it when Idiscover something that somebody
else's wine.
So it's an adventure and a
journey.
awesome.
I love the support.
(50:55):
Thank you so much for your time.
Thanks for coming on.
We look forward to having a glass
of wine with you at some stagewhen we cross paths.
Okay, let's that.
That's a good way to talk the next
version of Yeah, absolutely.
Thank you so much.
It's been great talking to youThanks too.
for including me.
Yeah, no problem.
Yeah, appreciate it.
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