Canadian Wine Is Cheaper in America — Even With a 50% Tariff.

Researched and written by ChatGPT

Canadians are constantly being told how damaging American tariffs are to our businesses.

So explain this.

Ron Kubek, co-owner of Lightning Rock Winery in Summerland, British Columbia, recently laid out what happens to one of his bottles of rosé.

His wholesale price: $20.

The United States has now imposed an additional 50% tariff on certain Canadian alcoholic beverages, effective August 22, 2026. That adds roughly $10 to Kubek’s $20 bottle.

Price after the U.S. tariff: about $30.

Now send that same Canadian wine to Ontario.

Kubek says its LCBO wholesale price becomes $38.17.

In Quebec, through the SAQ: $43.66.

Read that again.

A Canadian wine can enter the United States carrying a 50% American tariff and still have a lower wholesale price than it does in Ontario.

How?

Ontario's own LCBO documents provide a pretty good explanation.

Beginning April 1, 2026, the LCBO's wholesale markup on wine between 7.1% and 18% alcohol is 68% of landed cost.

Then there are additional charges and HST. The LCBO itself describes its pricing formula as:

landed cost + wholesale markup + applicable charges + deposit + HST.

That 68% Ontario markup alone turns a $20 cost into $33.60 before the remaining charges and HST are added.

Kubek's reported $38.17 Ontario wholesale price suddenly isn't mysterious at all.

So What Are We Actually Protecting Canadians From?

Foreign tariffs?

Or our own governments?

Because while politicians warn Canadians about Americans making Canadian goods more expensive, we have constructed our own system in which a bottle produced in British Columbia can cost substantially more to enter the Ontario market than it does to cross an international border carrying a punitive American tariff.

That's not American policy.

That's Canadian policy.

And perhaps Canadians deserve a much more honest conversation about why we are told to fear trade barriers erected by other countries while enormous government-created barriers remain standing right here at home.

The numbers aren't conspiracy theory.

They're published.

And once again, the story we've been sold looks considerably different when somebody actually checks the receipt.