Ottawa pours $180M into wine industry
New funding extends a support program for Canadian wineries
The Canadian government is continuing a multimillion-dollar program that provides critical help for Niagara’s grape and wine sector.
On Friday, Agriculture and AgriFoodMinister Lawrence MacAulay was at Trius Winery in Virgil to announce $177 million in funding over the next three years to extend the Wine Sector Support Program, which was launched in 2022.
“If you are going to grow an entire region, you need a foundation,” said Dan Paszkowski, president and chief executive officer of Wine Growers of Canada. “Without the program, the opportunity for growth is significantly minimized.”
Paszkowski, with various Niagara MPs, councillors and industry representatives, joined MacAulay at Trius for the announcement.
He said in 2022 the federal government provided $166 million to create the program that has provided financial assistance to an estimated 480 wineries across the country.
“It’s been a long time coming,” said Paszkowski. “There have been no complaints. We found something that works.”
Wineries can apply for financial support based on the percentage of Canadian wine they use, said Paszkowski.
“If it’s 10 per cent, you get 10 per cent funding,” he said. “It’s fair.”
There are also no conditions attached to what the wineries can use the money for, he said. “Wineries know best,” he said. In an interview, MacAulay said the program is “very important” to the wine sector.
“The industry is facing very different challenges,” he said. “This makes sense (so) the wine sector stays on the cutting edge. They are competing with the world.”
MacAulay also announced $5.9 million for the Grape and Wine Cluster program for research
Wineries can apply for financial support based on the percentage of Canadian wine they use
and another $836,220 to that will help provide wine growers access to grape vines free of disease.
“It’s a small part, but vitally important,” said MacAulay, a farmer who has represented Cardigan in Prince Edward Island since 1988. “We want to make sure wineries expand and modernize.”
Darien Temprile, executive director of Canadian Grapevine Certified Network, said the funding will sustain the research organization until 2028.
She said the organization had been focusing on biotechnology and pest control, but for the next few years it will be concentrating
on climate change, which is contributing to significant fluctuations in pest and disease management as weather changes.
“This is the reason that we exist,” said Temprile. “We can provide the industry with certified clean vines (and) provide sustainable and healthy vineyards.”
The Canadian grape and wine industry has grown by more than 70 per cent to $11.57 billion from 2011 to 2019, while in Ontario wine sales alone exceed $2.2 billion. A report from Deloitte, commissioned by Ontario Craft Wineries, Tourism Partnership of Niagara and Wine Growers Ontario, found the Niagara “cluster” has the potential of adding another $8 billion to the national gross domestic product over the next 25 years, with the wine industry leading the way.
Paszkowski said a report commissioned by Wine Growers Canada from Sonoma State University found that a onedollar investment into the wine sector reaps a return of $6.20. It means the $177-million federal government funding will inject about $1 billion over three years into the Canadian economy. “That is phenomenal,” he said. Chris Bittle, Liberal MP for St. Catharines, said Niagara’s wine sector “is driving our economy” with its “good-paying, union jobs.”
“It has changed the face of our tourism industry,” he said.
But the Canadian wine sector is also feeling the effects of climate change. Ontario vineyards saw crop losses of 50 per cent because of wild temperature swings in 2023, with some wineries experiencing an output drop of 75 per cent.
In British Columbia, some wineries lost as much as 40 per cent of their crop yields due to extreme heat in 2021, while a recent mid-January cold snap projected wine grapes and production to be about 97 to 99 per cent lower than usual in 2024, hitting the province’s wine sector by as much as $445 million.
MacAulay referenced the potential wine disaster in British Columbia several times during his announcement, saying the support program will provide some assistance.
“They are not out of it totally,” he said. “Now they have to replace (the vines). (The funding) won’t make you rich, but it will help.”