Canadian booze board eliminates Palestine

[yankeedoodle]

Samer Abdelnour holds a bottle of wine from Taybeh Winery that he bought from the LCBO. It came with a plain white sticker covering the front of the label, placed over the words 'of Palestine.

'An act of erasure': LCBO called out for sticker covering the word 'Palestine' on wine bottle
Taybeh wine bottles produced prior to 2020 had sticker as 'interim solution,' Ontario liquor board says
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/lcbo-taybeh-winery-palestine-bottle-covered-with-sticker-1.6424743?fbclid=IwAR36ucH5ZkhOV58BXmd4F0bU3RofGHIl_quIXOwNGsB1e-9zuLEXrzvk0PE&utm_source=pocket_mylist

Samer Abdelnour was visiting his family in Toronto when he decided to take out a bottle of wine he had ordered online and had delivered to them as a gift.

When he grabbed the bottle, he noticed a plain white sticker placed on top of the front label. Confused, he peeled it back to find the words "of Palestine" written underneath.

The 2019 bottle of red wine, ordered for home delivery via the website of the Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO), was produced by Taybeh Winery, which is located in the Israeli-occupied West Bank village of Taybeh, north of Jerusalem.

Abdelnour is a Palestinian Canadian, though he has lived in Europe for nearly 12 years. He works as an associate professor at the University of Edinburgh Business School. He also co-founded Al-Shabaka, a leading Palestinian think-tank.

Abdelnour had placed the online order on March 16, ahead of a planned visit to Canada in April.

When his family received the order, they unboxed the beer and wine and set them aside. This past Sunday, he said, they decided to take the wine out to have with dinner, when he spotted the label.

"That's when I thought, 'OK, what's this covering up?'" Abdelnour said. "I peeled it off and saw the 'of Palestine' underneath."

Abdelnour said seeing the word "Palestine" covered up on the bottle was "upsetting" and he took to Twitter to ask the LCBO why the sticker was placed there.

"As a Canadian, as a Palestinian, as a consumer, I mean, this is just — it's ridiculous, it's offensive and probably illegal," he said, noting it was the first time he had ordered Taybeh wine through the LCBO.

"It really reflects a deep settler-colonial insecurity when even mentioning Palestine is deemed a threat."

https://twitter.com/SamerAbdelnour/status/1516211248727216128?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1516211248727216128%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cbc.ca%2Fnews%2Fcanada%2Ftoronto%2Flcbo-taybeh-winery-palestine-bottle-covered-with-sticker-1.6424743

The LCBO said labelling on its products complies with the provincial and federal laws and guidelines outlined by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA), which enforces food-labelling requirements in Canada.

According to the LCBO, Taybeh wines produced since 2020 and sold at LCBO are labelled as originating from the "West Bank." However, bottles produced prior to 2020 used a sticker as an "interim solution," the LCBO said.

"Suppliers are required to meet the labelling requirements for packaged food and beverage alcohol products sold in Canada as set out by the CFIA," an LCBO spokesperson said.

"In some cases, when labels do not meet regulatory requirements, suppliers are given the opportunity to modify labels to meet requirements."

In this particular case, the Crown corporation said, the labels were revised to comply with the CFIA requirements, but didn't say whether it was the LCBO, Taybeh or the supplier that placed the sticker.

According to Palestine Just Trade, the organization which serves as Taybeh's agent in Canada, the wine was first purchased by the LCBO in March 2019 and "Product of Palestine" labels were approved at that time. However, the LCBO put the release on hold and later asked that stickers saying "West Bank" be placed on the products.

"The LCBO has continued to require West Bank on the label. The LCBO asked with the most recent shipment that also a blank sticker be placed over the word Palestine in the product title, 'Taybeh of Palestine,'" it said in an email.

In a statement to CBC News, the CFIA said it is the responsibility of regulated parties to comply with Canada's food-labelling requirements.

When asked what it was about the label that didn't meet the requirements, the CFIA said that information provided on a label "must not be false or misleading."

While Canada had previously not recognized an independent Palestinian state, in recent years, the federal government has shifted policy in support of Palestinians' right to self-determination, including embracing a two-state solution as part of a "comprehensive peace settlement" in the Middle East.

​"​When assessing a product's compliance, CFIA reviews all information on food labels — including words, images, vignettes and logos — as they will contribute to the overall impression created by that product to determine whether the label is false or a consumer could be misled," the CFIA statement said.

​The agency added that when a labelling violation is identified, the CFIA requests that the "necessary corrections" be made by the appropriate regulated party. The CFIA did not say what the violation was in this case.

The CFIA previously came under fire when it ruled that two wines made by Israeli settlement wineries located in the West Bank, Psagot Winery and Shiloh Winery, could be sold in Canada with the label "Product of Israel" under the terms of the Canadian-Israel Free Trade Agreement.

David Kattenburg, of Winnipeg, challenged the decision, claiming the federal food inspection agency did not follow Canadian and international law in making its decision. Two years later, a Federal Court judge found that labelling a wine from the West Bank as a "Product of Israel" is misleading and deceptive, putting the requirement on the CFIA to decide how the wines should be labelled.

Kattenburg told CBC News the government had appealed that ruling, and in May of 2021 the Federal Court of Appeal rejected the government's appeal, sending the labelling issue back to the CFIA for "redetermination."

"CFIA regulations require that wine labelling be 'regionally consistent.' If a Palestinian wine product produced in the West Bank needs to be labelled 'West Bank,' rather than 'Palestine,' then so does an Israeli settlement wine produced in the West Bank," Kattenburg said.

"Coming up with a truthful, accurate, non-misleading label isn't rocket science. We anticipate the CFIA will do so."

As for Abdelnour, he said he had yet to receive a response from the LCBO following his tweet. But he said incidents like this make it hard to talk about his family's homeland.

"You don't see that in other parts of the world. I've been living outside of Canada for a good part of a dozen years in Europe," he said. "And in some places, you just see a lot of aggression and hostility, but, you know, people talk about Palestine in a way that I think it's sometimes difficult to do in Toronto or in Canada."

  According to the LCBO, Taybeh wines produced since 2020 and sold at LCBO are labelled as originating from the West Bank. 

Abdelnour said the incident isn't the first time he has experienced an "act of erasure" as a Palestinian.

"It's tiring. I feel like growing up in Toronto, the narrative has been so hostile against Palestinians," Abdelnour said. "It's just tiring to face this sort of constant aggressiveness and denial. It really is an act of erasure."

CBC News has also reached out to Taybeh Winery but did not receive a response in time for publication.

[yankeedoodle]

Not the same issue, but related.  In this article, the issue is wine labelled as "Product of Israel" that was objected to by a Canadian jew.

Canadian agency rules "Produce of Israel" labels violate Canadian law
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency has ruled that "Product of Israel" labels affixed to wines produced in Israel's illegal West Bank settlements violate Canadian consumer protection law.
https://mondoweiss.net/2022/05/canadian-agency-rules-produce-of-israel-labels-violate-canadian-law/?utm_source=mailpoet&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=daily-email-hgs-mailpoet

We are pleased to announce that the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) has ruled that "Product of Israel" labels affixed to wines produced in Israel's illegal West Bank settlements violate Canadian consumer protection law.

The CFIA's decision is the latest chapter in a half-decade legal battle that began in January 2017. At that time, Dr. David Kattenburg, a member of Canada's Jewish community, filed a complaint against two wines made in the Israeli, West Bank settlements of Psagot and Shiloh. Dr. Kattenburg argued that, because those settlements are situated on Occupied Palestinian Territory in violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention, the wines produced in those settlements were falsely labelled as "Product of Israel".

In July 2017, in response to Dr. Kattenburg's complaint, Canadian authorities notified wine vendors in Ontario that these settlement wines were falsely labeled. Within days of this notification, however, the Government of Israel and pro-Israel lobby groups launched a campaign to pressure the government of Justin Trudeau into reversing the decision. Within 48 hours, the CFIA reversed itself, and even issued an apology.

Dr. Kattenburg then retained Ontario lawyer Dimitri Lascaris to commence a judicial review application in the Federal Court of Canada (FCC). In July 2019, the FCC ruled that the labels affixed to these wines were, indeed, "false, misleading and deceptive".

The Government appealed. In May 2021, the Federal Court of Appeal dismissed the Government's appeal, but rather than simply affirming the lower Court's decision, the Court of Appeal ordered the CFIA to explain its decision after receiving further submissions from Dr. Kattenburg and Psagot Winery.

Dr. Kattenburg's latest submissions, which were filed with the CFIA in September 2021, included land deeds issued by Israeli authorities which showed that the Psagot Winery was situated entirely on land stolen from its Palestinian owners.

In its most recent decision, issued on May 13, 2022, the CFIA ruled that:

Global Affairs Canada (GAC) has informed the CFIA that Canada does not recognize permanent Israeli control over territories occupied in 1967 (this includes the West Bank) and that the West Bank is a territory outside of the internationally recognized boundaries of the State of Israel. In addition, GAC has informed the CFIA that Canada considers that there is no recognized country where the two wines in question were produced, although these wines were produced in an area administered by the State of Israel...

Given the above elements and the totality of the information provided on the applicable two wine labels, the voluntary claim "Product of Israel", without clarifying information, is considered "false" under the provisions of the Food and Drugs Act, the Safe Food for Canadians Act and the Consumer Packaging and Labelling Act.

We are grateful to and commend the CFIA for restoring the decision that it initially rendered in July 2017.

At this stage, it is not known whether Psagot Winery will seek a judicial review of the CFIA's most recent ruling. If it does so, this legal odyssey will continue — potentially for years — but even if Psagot Winery elects not to seek judicial review, the dispute could go on. The reason for this is that the CFIA's latest decision leaves considerable room for more chicanery.

In its latest ruling, the CFIA did not declare explicitly what label it would consider to be appropriate. Rather, it simply stated:

These wines were not produced within the internationally recognized boundaries of the State of Israel and there is no clarifying information included on the labels in question to inform a consumer that the two wines in question were produced in an area of the West Bank administered by the State of Israel. [Emphasis in original.]

As a result of this unfortunate formulation, we can easily imagine that the producers of West Bank settlement products will now employ labels on which the phrase "Product of Israel" is prominently displayed, but which is accompanied by the phrase (in small print) "Territory administered by Israel."

In our view, because these products are the fruits of war crimes, they should not even be allowed into Canada, but if they are to be sold in Canada, their labels must disclose explicitly that they were produced in an Israeli settlement that is situated on "Occupied Palestinian Territory." Such a label would be consistent with a 2019 decision of the European Court of Justice relating to wines sold in Europe by Psagot Winery's European affiliate. At the end of the day, the phrase "territory administered by Israel" is grossly inadequate.

Furthermore, wine labeling must be regionally consistent. Recently, the Liquor Control Board of Ontario ruled that Palestinian wines produced in the Israeli-occupied West Bank must be labeled 'Product of West Bank," rather than 'Product of Palestine'. For consistency, so must wines produced in Israeli settlements in the West Bank. 'Product of West Bank (Palestinian)' and 'Product of West Bank (Israeli settlement)' would be regionally consistent and fully accurate.

On a related issue, responding to Canadian Charter of Rights-related arguments put forward to the FCC by counsel for Independent Jewish Voices, the CFIA states in its May 13, 2022 redetermination that "Charter provisions have no application in this redetermination." Specifically, the CFIA states: "... consumer choice in selecting a wine remains unrestricted by the government, allowing consumers to continue to act in line with their conscience."

Although we disagree with the CFIA's conclusion that the Canadian Charter of Rights has no application here, we are pleased by the CFIA's acknowledgement that Canadian consumers make choices based on personal conscience. Canadian consumers wishing to avoid a wine product produced in flagrant violation of international law have every right to be informed, explicitly, that a wine product was produced in an Israeli settlement established in contravention of Canada's own Geneva Conventions Act.

We are hopeful that, once importers of Israeli settlement products adapt to the new ruling, the CFIA will take steps to ensure that the labels on these products contain all material information that Canadian consumers require in order to make informed purchasing decisions. If the CFIA fails to do so, we will continue to pursue all remedies available to Dr. Kattenburg under Canadian law.

Finally, Dr. Kattenburg and counsel look forward to arguing the above points in the course of consultations the CFIA will initiate later this year, where "input will be sought from interested stakeholders on policy relating to what might be acceptable origin declarations in this and similar circumstances."

The CFIA's full redetermination decision can be viewed here. https://dimitrilascaris.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/here.pdf