"Help small players compete" isn't really how I'd interpret Ontario's wine industry, which is -- like so much of Canadian capitalism -- dominated by only two companies, Vincor and Andrew Peller. They have effectively achieved regulatory capture having established in the 80s a retailing, tariff, taxation, regulatory (VQA and other things), and even municipal zoning (go look at Niagara and area zoning laws some time about things like minimum acreage etc) that squeezes out small players in favour of their own operations.

This all came out of the signing of the original FTA in the 80s. The established players at the time were basically given a permanent advantage as part of negotiations around that. (For 30 years only those two companies could run their own retail stores for example).

Through acquisition and obfuscation they've built up a whole trading card stack of wine labels, that make it look like there's far more diversity here than ther e is. The story in the Ontario wine industry is a lot like how our tech sector works -- Vincor is Google, and smaller wineries are startups, and the "exit strategy" is to get bought up by them. Otherwise you'll probably perish.

Even the VQA "quality" descriptors are written to favour their own established businesses.

(Some chipping away at this recently at least. I hate Doug Ford but he's the first government to really undermine these monopolies in the last 40 years because by opening up retailing at grocery stores and gas stations etc. And VQA has become a little less restrictive about things like varietal choices etc in the last 5 years.)

Wish I knew less about this subject. I used to fantasize about operating my own small winery. Something that's not possible in Ontario unless you're well connected, extremely rich, or masochistic (or preferably all of the above).