As the threat of U.S. tariffs continues to loom over Canadians, Niagara’s grape and wine industry is bracing for impact.

“Tariffs will cost jobs and create great uncertainty,” Aaron Dobbin, President and CEO of Wine Growers Ontario told Dear Niagara.

“The biggest impacts will be on the local economy, our customers and our neighbours. Canadians have been in support of buying locally amid the looming threat,” he said.

Tariffs or not, Dobbin urges residents to buy local.

“Now more than ever, please buy Ontario wine but also other goods that are made by people in Niagara, in Ontario and in Canada,” he said.

On Monday, Wine Growers Canada (WGC), the national association representing the Canadian wine industry, renewed calls for provincial and federal progress to tackle “long-standing, archaic” barriers to inter-provincial trade, according to a press release from WGC.

“In an increasingly unpredictable international trade environment due to the ongoing threat of U.S. tariffs, Canada must focus on reducing barriers within its own domestic market, including those which specifically prevent wine from being couriered from wineries in one province to consumers in another,” the press release said.

Wine-to-consumer delivery would drive significant growth for the Canadian wine industry, which accounts for the country’s highest value agricultural sector, the release stated.

“We need to tear down these barriers that limit consumer choice and the growth of the Canadian wine industry, an industry of over 600 grape wineries and 1,900 grape growers,” Dan Paszkowski, President & CEO of WGC said.

“Our wineries attract 4.2 million tourist visitors every year, but for the vast majority of these visitors, it is illegal to have their favourite wines from these wineries shipped to their out-of-province home. The Canadian wine industry calls on all provincial Premiers to launch the process of removing the interprovincial barriers for winery-to-consumer delivery,” he said.

The ongoing U.S. tariffs risk has “proven that it is time for Canada to enter the 21st century and free the grapes,” Paskowski added.

The grape and wine industry contributed $11.6 billion to the Canadian economy in 2019, according to a report from WGC.

In Ontario alone, the industry contributed over $5.4 billion to the economy in 2019, according to a report from Wine Growers Ontario.

The “mere uncertainty” of the trade environment” will inevitably slow overall business activity,” Brock Associate Professor of Economics and CCOVI Lester Kwong said in a recent press release.

“Here in Niagara, wineries are producing some of the best wines in the world,” Debbie Inglis, Director of Brock University’s Cool Climate Oenology and Viticulture Institute (CCOVI), said in the release.

“Everyone can find a style of wine they love, all while supporting the critical ‘buy local’ message that will benefit Canada during this unique period in its economic history,” she said.