A bottle of your favourite wine will now cost you a little bit more.
As of Monday, the tax is moving from its current rate of 65.5 per cent to 67.5 per cent for Ontario wine while the imported variety will go from 71.5 per cent to 73.5 per cent.
It’s an increase that Christine Van Geyn with the Canadian Taxpayers Federation says could hurt the province’s wineries.
“We have really wonderful and award-winning wine industry here in Ontario,” says Van Geyn.
“For the government to tax products like that they might as well just tell people ‘just don’t buy wine.’”
The increase was set out in the 2016 provincial budget.
Prices will increase another two per cent in the next two years and another one per cent in 2019.
Speaking to CTV Kitchener outside a wine store, Mark Rogers says the tax increase will impact how much wine he purchases.
“It would decrease my wine usage. I won’t be buying two to four bottles a week, I might buy one or two,” says Rogers.
The Canadian Taxpayers Federation says it’s starting a petition asking the premier to make wine prices more affordable.
