News from Dieu du Ciel on the NDP’s new budget and Alberta!

To all our loyal customers living in Alberta,
We learned with dismay 2 weeks ago that the Alberta government decided to dramatically raise the tax applied to all the beer that is coming from outside this province (with an exception for the 2 other provinces that are part of the New West Agreement with Alberta: Saskatchewan and B.C.). This means for Dieu du Ciel that their beers sold in this province suddenly got a 3$ per six-pack increase in price (the tax went from 0.20$ to 1.25$ per liter) literally overnight. Indeed, the tax increase was announced on October 27 and came into effect the day after. This increase means that most of our beers will now end up being sold over the 20$ per six-pack psychological threshold. We’re sorry about that.
Not only such a sudden huge tax increase is a nonsense, but the fact that it was implemented with only a one day notice left absolutely no time to us or our Albertan agent to react or try to adjust to it.
Don’t think we are anti-tax. Not at all. But in the present situation, it’s quite obvious that the government didn’t take the time to seriously analyse what would be the impact of the change it implemented. We must also consider that beer is already taxed and heavily regulated at both the federal and provincial levels.
Some might say that we are in a bad position to complain since our own SAQ applies the same medicine to all imported beers (by "imported" I mean anything coming from outside Quebec). This is totally true. However, the short-view policies that the SAQ applies to imported beers and its unjustifiable mark-up (from 2.5 to 3 times the original price) made Quebec an imported beer desert, to the great despair of beer lovers. This shouldn’t be a model to follow, but on the contrary to avoid. Most people in Québec agree on the fact that the SAQ outdated system should be changed.
To our knowledge, Alberta, up to October 26, had the most friendly beer system in Canada, and was an example for all the other provinces to follow. The situation in Canada actually makes no sense: 10 provinces having 10 different liquor boards ending up in 10 different ways to deal with alcohol. It’s easier for us to sell our beers to the USA and Europe than it is to most of the Canadian provinces! Alberta was the exception, but maybe not anymore... It would be time for our politicians to work seriously on implementing a "free-trade" system for beer all across Canada. Our country is probably the only one in the world where beer cannot travel freely from a region to another...
Our Albertan agent (Mike Tessier from Artisan Ales) worked very hard in the last six years to create a niche market for our beers in his province and keep the price for our beers at a reasonable level, and it would be very sad to see him going out of business because of this badly planned and thought tax increase. Because, like it or not, this tax increase will affect sales, and as a very small business, Artisan Ales doesn’t have the luxury of losing even a small part of its actual market. In turn, this might mean that eventually Dieu du ciel will not be available anymore in Alberta. Despite the fact that we make sure to offer a more than fair price to our agent for our beers, it’s frustrating that in the end, the entity that makes the most money is the government, not the agent.

Just about the maths, a 6pack is 2 liters; should we say the tax increased by 2.10$ ?

Originally posted by Hoser

Originally posted by fiulijn
Just about the maths, a 6pack is 2 liters; should we say the tax increased by 2.10$ ?

$2.25 a 6 pack mark up tax rate, most retailers add a 30 to 35% margin. So 3 dollars or more to the end customer.

This is insane. AB used to be at the forefront of choice. I heard Muskoka is pulling out as well.

It was a good idea (in principal) giving Alberta brewers a lower tax rate, but then lumping in the rest of the Canadian non-NWA members and the smaller import craft/smaller brewers with the big guys was just plain stupid.

Muskoka will be out of Alberta by the end of the year, they said.

"NWA members" is even a bigger joke. From what I gather this means nothing as the other provinces aren’t changing their tax scheme. Let me guess, this is the brewers associations genius?

It’s more than just a few breweries involved; it’s something that could contravene NAFTA and other trade laws.... http://www.newwestpartnership.ca/

Originally posted by Torontoblue
It’s more than just a few breweries involved; it’s something that could contravene NAFTA and other trade laws.... http://www.newwestpartnership.ca/

Northwest Partnership Agreement only means equal access for BC/AB/SK products between partner provinces.