It's not the time to cave on booze boycotts

Winnipeg Free Press

11-06-2025

Opinion
A good measure of the true strength of your intentions is how much you're willing to sacrifice to stand up for what you believe.
That should be the case even more when what you're sacrificing is essentially a luxury. You should, after all, be able to hold out a good long time without compromising your principles when what you're giving up is not even a necessity.
Well, two Canadian premiers have demonstrated that the strength of their convictions is as shallow as a shot glass.
MIKAELA MACKENZIE / FREE PRESs fileS
Shelves emptied of American alcohol at a Liquor Mart.
Remember when many provinces halted their sales of U.S. alcohol products in response to trade action by the American government?
You should — it was, after all, only a little over three months ago that Alberta Premier Danielle Smith was saying this about U.S. tariffs: 'This economic attack on our country, combined with Mr. Trump's continued talk of using economic force to facilitate the annexation of our country, has broken trust between our two countries in a profound way… It is a betrayal of a deep and abiding friendship.'
A deep betrayal, all right.
As of this week, both Alberta and Saskatchewan began purchasing U.S. alcohol products again.
The halt in sales had been a clear and decisive multimillion-dollar message to American producers that Canadians weren't going to put up with the endless tariff follies of U.S. President Donald Trump. With plenty of other domestic and global options, we could no doubt put up with the absence of American wine, beer and bourbon.
The boycott threatened US$1.1 billion in American wine sales alone, and U.S. spirits producers have said the boycotts were worse than tariffs.
It was a strong message to the U.S. that trade is a two-way street.
But a boycott — even of a luxury item that will still face a retaliatory tariff of 25 per cent by the Canadian government — is only as strong as its weakest link.
And the governments of Alberta and Saskatchewan, always proud chest-thumpers of the innate toughness of good western folk, have proven to be that weakest link. Heaven forbid the Jack Daniels or Maker's Mark bourbon wouldn't be there to flow for the Calgary Stampede.
Meanwhile, Alberta's move was swiftly welcomed by the United States' ambassador to Canada, Peter Hoekstra, who couldn't resist taking a social media victory lap, saying on X/Twitter: 'Very glad to see that Albertans can once again enjoy a cold U.S. beer or glass of wine. Thanks to Premier @ABDanielleSmith for your leadership in removing this barrier to fair and reciprocal trade.'
Hoekstra's comments have to be read as a bitter little joke: the fact is that the capricious introduction of tariffs across a broad range of Canadian products by Trump is what built the current barriers 'to fair and reciprocal trade.' (If Hoekstra couldn't see the backhander he was delivering for the insult it truly was, then perhaps the carefully wrought world of diplomacy should not be his trade.)
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Alberta seems quite willing to be the butt of that joke: last Friday, Alberta's Service Alberta and Red Tape Reduction Minister Dale Nally said the sales were being restarted to show a 'renewed commitment to open and fair trade' with the U.S.
The United States has shown, of course, not one single iota of renewed commitment to anything like open and fair trade.
Let's hope that customers in Alberta and Saskatchewan will continue to make the point that their governments don't have the strength to deliver, and continue to boycott American products until American producers can make their own case to their politicians about the damage done by trade wars.
If not?
Raise a glass to capitulation. And just wait for the next Trumpian punishment to be dealt out to America's former closest neighbour. Because it will come.