Political wars really do bring out the worst in people, especially in the political class. As the U.S./Canada trade wars go unresolved the number of victims grows, most notably the U.S. Wine and Spirts community is taking a major hit, not so much because of the Canadian consumer but because of the Canadian political class.

Many provincial liquor stores in Canada put an all out ban on American wine and spirits and cleared them off the shelves. This movement has reached its point of absurdity when the Quebec liquor board announced they may be forced to destroy $300,000 worth of American alcohol that the government banned from their stores. A government entity is purposefully wasting taxpayer dollars for the sake of a temper tantrum.

Ironically, Quebec has found its Canadian patriotism after it nearly succeeded in breaking away from Canada in the last referendum.

The government stores in addition to pulling U.S. products off the shelf are encouraging people to buy Canadian products as a substitute to American goods. This would make sense if the products were similarly situated, but they are not. A Kentucky bourbon can’t be produced in Alberta; it is an impossibility. The government is asking its consumers to forego your freedom of choice and pick something you may not prefer. Canadian whiskeys are great and I enjoy them, but not everyone is me, and a Canadian whiskey may not fit a consumer’s taste.

Instead of picking on the U.S. liquor industry, I have come up with an alternative solution. If we desire to wholly replace the American with the Canadian, why not use football. I mean the CFL is less popular than the NFL and the league could use all the support they can get. Why not pull NFL games off of tv and encourage people to watch the CFL and support Canadian football. If we are going to get anti-American why not take it out on America’s real passion, wouldn’t that be flexing your muscles? Why do Canadians need to see the Chiefs v. Eagles when they could watch the Roughriders v. Alouettes?

The reason why this will never happen is because football games are not on CBC, the government owned network, but on a privately owned network that paid lots of money for the tv rights. In other words, it is easy to throw temper tantrums with other people’s money, it is a lot harder when your own money is on the line.

Whereas the Canadian consumer can make the choice whether they want to boycott the NFL and favor the CFL, the government took this choice away in the liquor world. We can only hope American control states don’t start playing the same game.

In addition to the Canadian consumer, the American small wineries and distilleries are getting hurt. They are losing a large part of the market through no fault of their own. I witness those in America who revel in the Canadian government bans because they think it is them standing up to American political figures they don’t like, but this is shortsighted and moronic. Jack Daniels and brand names will take a small hit, but they will be fine, but for small producers losing access to a friendly market is devastating. Losing this market could lead to small producers going out of business and people losing their jobs, not something to revel about.

In the end, I hope the U.S./Canada trade war ends soon, as a free market believer, I wish the tariffs never came about but unfortunately, they are here. Let’s not make matters worse by petty government acts throwing fuel onto the fire, and let’s focus on getting back to free trade with our friendly neighbors to the north!  Then everyone will benefit and maybe even the CFL will get a piece.