A splash of water in the wine

The Nova Scotia Government has pumped the brakes on a controversial policy affecting the wine industry. This is a look at the back story and the politics involved when doing an about-face amidst wide-spread criticism.

Episode Transcript

(00:01):
Are you a friend either, Welcomeback. My name Michelda McLeod. This
is Thinking out Loud. This ismy podcast video cast, presented to you
exclusively by Saltwire. And I wantedto talk a little bit about lessons learned,
and I want to talk a littlebit about something that happened that doesn't
happen very often here in Nova Scotiaor anywhere for that matter, that a

(00:24):
government comes out with what it saysis a strong policy for whatever, and
then just a few weeks or evena few months later, they say,
well, okay, we did whatwe didn't intend to do, or the
policy did what it wasn't expected todo. Let's talk a little bit about
the wine industry here in Nova Scotia, and I'll invite you to check out

(00:45):
there's a great commentary about this frommy colleague Mark de Wolf. He took
this on just in the last weekor so. But the headline itself is
what I wanted to talk to youabout it, at least to start.
This is our jumping off Pointnce backsdown on controversial pricing policy and Nova Scotia
farm wineries are pleased. Bill spurIs, the reporter who did this,

(01:08):
published it at the Chronicle Herald andat saltwire dot com. And as you
may have already read or heard,the Nova Scotia government announced a contentious policy
on support for part of the wineindustry has been paused. Now why should
this be important, Well, therewas pushback almost immediately to this policy.

(01:30):
In fact, there was a storyfrom Bill spur just on the fourth of
March in which one of the folkswho owns well Domain de grand Prey had
said a winery, a farm winery, that this was a shock, came
out of nowhere, that they werenot expecting this, and this being the
farm wineries across Nova Scotia. Theyhad as was reported, and as Bernice

(01:53):
Stutz of Grand Prex Wines it said, they had a phone call or letter
or notion that they were called toa meeting in Halifax, and that was
on the fourth of January. Themeeting was to be on the fifth of
January and it was to explain thatthere would be following on the Monday,

(02:14):
a change in policy, the markuppolicy that determines the price of wines,
and that it was going to change. Now this is layered, there's a
lot to this, but Nova ScotiaLiquor Corporation is the agency obviously that is
responsible for setting alcohol prices in thisprovince, and for a multitude of reasons

(02:35):
that I'm not going to go into. Some of the rules. Some of
the laws are quite old and morethan a few folks have asked for them
to be reviewed. But that's notwhy we're talking about this. There was
actually a World Trade Organization dispute thatsaid launched by Australia, that said Nova
Scotia was unfairly disadvantaging other wine producersthrough something that was called an emerging wine

(03:00):
preference. That's not the technical name, but it gave preferential pricing to wines
that were produced here in Nova Scotia. Well, what the government had said
to the wine farmers or the folkswho had spent all their money and effort
growing grapes to turn into wine,is that they were moving to a system
that would help to support bottling thatwine. Now, what that meant was

(03:27):
that some of the bigger companies thatare well bottling wine in Nova Scotia could
see quite a lucrative change in therevenue stream and it would then perhaps muddy
the waters. I don't know poorlittle wine water in the wine, if
you will, that was confusing thismatter, so that the people who were

(03:49):
bottling potentially juice from other parts ofthe world were going to get a preferential
treatment and get government dollars that wouldnot then be directly going to the folks
who are growing grapes and trying togrow an industry that they've been building for
the past twenty thirty years. Andwhy that was important is that some folks

(04:11):
thought it wasn't fair that this isa picture from New Year's Eve that was
posted on social media that has thePremier of Nova Scotia there, Tim Houston,
the mayor of Halifax. That's ofcourse Mike Savage. There's Jordy Morgan,
who's a consultant who works with Ibelieve Restaurants Canada Now. And there's

(04:33):
another gentleman in that image. Andthe person who is on the right of
the Premier or to the left inthat photo is a man whose name is
well, let me just see here, Carl Sparks. Carl Sparks the owner
of commercial winery Devonian Coast. Andthis was on New Year's Eve. Four

(04:55):
days later, farm wineries are toldto come to the city, we're changing,
Paul, and didn't sit well obviouslywith a lot of folks. In
fact, just after that change happenedand the Nova Scotia spring sitting in the
legislature began, in which the budgetwas introduced in some of the details of
that plan came forward, there wassomething called a media scrum. H This

(05:16):
was on the day this basically becamepublic, or at least there was a
way to publicly ask the Premiere aboutit. And this is from the legislative
scrum. And Michael Gorman with CBC, a former Harold reporter, brought this
issue to the Premiere and this iswhat the Premier had to say. Okay,
we got limited time with you,for sure. What's not clear to

(05:38):
me, though, is is thissubsidy that's now being extended to two commercial
bottlers about response to which I'm goingto stop you, let me stop you.
If you want to ask it,let's let's ask. Let's stick to
the facts, Premier. You know, I really resent every time you say
that I do. I do myjob, my integrity and I focus on
facts, and I resent you suggestingotherwise. But when you characterize it as

(06:00):
it's only available to two people,I just want I just want to be
quick, but no one else cando it at the scale the two commercial
Why not? Why not because theydon't have this the slight? Can't they
ramp up? Why can't they?Premier just to put a ball on on
whether or not you have a friendshipwith this gentleman. You don't consider him
a friend. Look, I Ilove every single no station here for a

(06:24):
long time. We don't want towaste time time this particular gentleman. Is
he a friend? I know him, I know, I know you.
Are you a friend? I know? How about tens of thousand? That
was from then, and we hadobviously several weeks. In fact, there

(06:45):
was March break and the premieer wasnot expected to be back in the House
of Assembly for this current week,but for some reason that changed and he
was there. And that brings usto the developments from Tuesday, the nineteenth
of March. In the House ofAssembly. The time is now two o'clock,
almost two to oh one. Wewill begin questions by members put to

(07:09):
ministers, and we will finish witha few minutes or a few seconds extra
at that. Okay, so theyran a little bit late getting into it
and that's why the Speaker, CarlaMcFarlane said, we can tack on that
time to the end of the questionperiod. So that's what happens between two
and the three o'clock and the NovaScotial Legislature, and as per custom,

(07:30):
the leader of the Official Opposition getsto have the first question to ask a
Minister of Government something specific. Thisagain comes as the province had just announced
that they were withdrawing or changing orin some ways going back on that initial
plan to give a subsiding to thefolks who were bottling wine here in Nova
Scotia. And I recognize the honorableleader of the Official Opposition, we must

(07:55):
run out of here, out ofSpeaker. It took three weeks of sustain
pure inside this house and without forthe Premier to actually finally meet with the
great growers and local wine producers inNova Scotia. We know, however,
that based on freedom of information request, that the Premier had met with the
two commercial bottlers times many times sincetwenty twenty two. Madam Speaker, why

(08:18):
did it take three weeks of publicpressure and bad headlines for the Premier to
do the right thing meet with ourlocal find representatives and I agree to pause
this dangerous plan that he had inplace that could have jeopardized them all.
Okay, just for process sakes.For process sake, maybe you don't know,
but what happens is all the questionsare put through the speaker. That's

(08:39):
how it works. So when thePremier is answering a question, he's answering
the question through the speaker. That'spart of our democracy. That is the
Westminster system that we have. Andyou heard a very specific question and now
this is an opportunity for the Premierto respond. I recognize the honorable Premier.

(09:01):
Thank you, Thank you, MadamSpeaker. And we're big, big,
big fans of the industry for sure, supporters of the industry over the
years bring us an incredible potential togrow that industry. So I'm pleased that
we had a productive meeting last night. I know leading up to that,
the ministers had been meeting with thegroup. I was happy to be able
to meet with them last night.But I think the reality is is that

(09:24):
there's so much potential for the provincein that industry, but in so many
other industries. We need to growthe economy of the province. That's all
We're trying to do and I hopethe member doesn't take it, doesn't take
offense to trying to grow the economyof the province. That's what we're trying
to do. We don't always getit right. When we don't, we

(09:45):
try, we try to try tofix it. And we'll do that here
too as well. All Right,So that's a pretty big statement from the
Premier of Nova Scotia says, well, we're just trying to grow the economy.
Maybe a hint there that there weresome unintended cost squesces, something that
hadn't been considered, and that he'sjust trying to do the best. And
he hopes that the opposition leader doesn'ttake offense to the province trying to grow

(10:09):
the economy, which you know heisn't going to take offense to that.
But that's part of the thrust andperry of what happens in question period.
I recognize the leader of the officialopposition man a speaker. It's very clear
that you don't grow the economy byputting two hundred and fifty million dollars of
our economy and farm wines and jeopardy. That's not how you grow the economy.

(10:31):
That's how you kill our world economy. And the fact is the Premier
met with commercial bottlers two years ago. It took sustained pressure from this chamber
and from the industry representatives who didn'ttake this issue laying down, and I'm
proud of them for not doing that, for him to actually meet with him
and agrate to pause to this.Why did it take so long for the
Premium to realize how important this sectoris and that his plans could have jeopardized

(10:54):
the whole thing? Very specific question, why did it take so long?
Let's talk a little bit more aboutthat, and then the Premier's interest.
I recognize the honorable Premier, thankyou mana speaker, and I just I
certainly don't want to give the Memberof the impression that he had any impact
on this decision. He certainly didnot. We've been we've been supporters of

(11:18):
this industry for for quite some time. I think that it's there's agreement that
there are different sectors to the industrythey can coexist. We need to get
that right. There's there's a desirefrom stakeholders across the spectrum to grow the
industry. I share that desire.We'll we'll we'll we'll find we'll get the
right path forward. I'm confident inthat that's what we all want. We

(11:41):
all want better things for for Noviscoch. We grow incredible grapes here, incredible
grapes here. The potential for theindustry is not just potentials, being realized
that we're seeing it in increasing sales. So we'll continue to to look for
ways to to make sure that wedo what's right by all the moose scots.
I recognize. Okay, so youcaught that he's we go. We
do grow grapes, great grapes,great grape, grape, juice, grape,

(12:03):
wine, grape AnyWho. So thePremier is offering his side, which
is, you know what, wedo have a good product, We have
faith in this and yes, ifwe make a mistake, mind you,
it was not because of the oppositionthat we changed our minds. We recognized
and we will do better is essentiallywhat he was saying. And then it's

(12:26):
time once again for the leader ofthe Opposition to say something to respond to
that. Three questions right, threequestions, the honorable Leader of the Official
Opposition on his final supplementary, youran a secret. I'm slively not taking
credit for this. What happened isvery obvious. The Premier got caught doing
the wrong thing for the wrong reasons, and he didn't have a leg to
stand on. First, this wasa trade issue, now it's an economic

(12:50):
development issue. There's been no evidenceproduced that either of those things had anything
to do with this change, MadamSpeaker. The Premier says he's pausing the
subsidy to commerce bottlers who are importingjuice to compete with local wine growers.
But we've heard from the Minister ofFinance, so the government has already dishowed
money to commercial wine bottlers already.Could the Premier police confirm if that's happened,
if this program in fact hasn't beenpaused, and how much money has

(13:13):
been provided to commercial bottlers and formsof subsidy. So again, the leader
of the Opposition comes back with veryspecific question, asking how much money was
already spent, how much was alreadygiven to these wineries that are bottling juice
from other parts of the world.The Premier is then, you know,
not necessary. There's a reason theydon't call it. Answer period is the

(13:37):
common trope here, The Honorable Premier, thank you, Man, Speaker of
the program has been in place sinceJanuary. There's multiple programs, they all
initiate at the same time. Sowe're going to work to make sure we
get it right. We've agreed tothat. We'll work in that in good
faith. Worre Sincere. We wantto grow. We want to grow,
grow the sector and the members shouldjust be careful with is with his phrases.

(14:01):
I mean getting caught is something thathappened with the member with the Auditor
General's report on the theft of publicmoney that the Auditor General was very clear
the Liberal Party tried to conceal untilafter an election. We're not caught on
anything. We're acknowledging. We're acknowledgingthat there's a way to maybe get this
a little better. We're committed todoing that and we will make sure that
that happens. Thank you many speaker. So there you have the Premier saying,

(14:28):
oh little political thrust and Perry caught. No, that's what happened with
the Liberal leader. And what hisreference is is to the Auditor General's report
from a few weeks ago that saidthat criminal charges or at least the RCMP
should have been notified about money thathad been taken from the Nova Scotia Liberal
Party Association. Someone did end upleaving that job because of it, and

(14:52):
well repaid the money, and thepremiers alluding to the fact that under a
former premier, different government that somehowZact Churchill had something to do with it.
I'm not privy to any of that, but a little chippy, a
little bit of politics in the Houseof Comments or sorry, in the House
of Assembly here in Nova Scotia,the no was scuse your legislature. That's

(15:13):
what happens. So just a quicknote here, mister Premier. I think
we're friends, aren't we Can wetalk here? Good on you for recognizing
that what had been well essentially whatyou prescribed as a good news announcement for
the industry turned out to have otherimpacts that you decided to revisit. And

(15:35):
politically that makes sense, but badluck, bad look calling out reporters in
that way, bad look making itan issue that wasn't one of your own
doing. Clearly the government made thatdecision, and the optics are terrible.
You know, make have New Year'sEve dinner or celebrations at a private club

(15:58):
with one person who happens to havewell the year of the premiere, and
then four days later, all theother wineries who don't have the same scale
as that one told you that theythought it was a bad idea. So
well, good for you for atleast owning part of that. I'd love

(16:18):
to hear from you what you think. You can always find me at Sheldon
dot McLoud at saltwire dot com,of course, on the socials, and
if there's another story that you thinkwe should wade into before I get to
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