This address is to Jackson-Triggs Wineries, of Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario and Oliver, B.C. It is also to the reader community at the Council of European Canadians.
Jackson-Triggs – (formerly?) my favourite Canadian wine.
Yes, I am of the legal age to enter.
I enter your website and am greeted with a wallpaper of a Black couple holding glasses of wine and kissing, behind the didactic: “Every day can be legendary. The biggest joys are hidden among the everyday. We make wine to celebrate them.”
At least the couple are heterosexual.
And I certainly agree that Jackson-Triggs is a wine that can be enjoyed regularly and not merely as a treat. At under $20 per bottle for most of their lineup, it’s within reach of even rather penurious wine-drinkers like myself.
I initially visited your website last night to browse your selection of Shiraz. I was looking for a complex red — a wine equivalent of a Latakia — as a change of pace from my usual preference for Sauvignon Blanc (the electric-blonde, Visigoth warrior-queen of wine).
But I digress.
A visitor to this website is given five main sections to choose from: “Home”, “Shop”, “Our Commitments”, “Visit Us”, and “Contact Us”.
“Our Commitments“? What commitments could Jackson-Triggs be speaking of?
A commitment for better pay and benefits for their employees?
A commitment to use only Canadian-grown fruit in your wines (instead of importing those mildewy piss-pockets from California and passing it off as a Canadian product)?
A commitment to keep fungus, mildew & mold out of your vineyards and cask storage sites?
A commitment to continue providing Canadians (and the world) with high-quality Canadian wines at affordable prices?
As the reader may have guessed, it’s none of the above.
It’s a commitment to be more Black.
Upon clicking this link, we’re taken to another didactic titled “How we’re helping to make change”. Below, it reads: “We’re proud to be the wine choice for so many Canadians. We acknowledge that there’s work to be done within the Canadian wine industry to foster a more welcoming, diverse and inclusive world for everyone. These are our commitments to making our dream of an inclusive wine world a reality.”
I find it hard to believe that anybody beyond perhaps a small activist minority of Jackson-Triggs staff were “dreaming of a more inclusive world” and such dribble prior to the current cultural Maoist revolution that now is spreading its tentacles almost everywhere. The vague insinuation made in this statement is that the old-stock Canadians who comprise the vast majority of personnel and enthusiasts in the Canadian wine world are insular, self-absorbed, and hostile. This is an unfair accusation to level against the people who have dedicated much of their labour, money, and time to ensuring that Canada has a wine industry at all. The insinuation that they need to step aside as part of some grander goal of faux cultural progress is an outrage.
But let us continue onto the specifics.
COMMITMENT 1
Keeping ourselves accountable
Accountability
We value diversity of opinions immensely. For many of our programs, we are guided by the advice and opinions of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion teams inside out organization and out. We have a long journey of education and hard work ahead of us to create a more inclusive world, but we’re dedicated to making it a reality.
“A long journey of education…to create a more inclusive world”?? This is a frightening thing to write. It reads more like a forced confession (a signature in cultural Maoism) of the faux need to accept REeducation!
There is also a growing and not insignificant portion of the Canadian population who want to see the legal sale of alcohol prohibited entirely in this country. I think of a figure who has been in the news cycle lately — one Amira Elghawaby — who has called for the end of the celebration of the 1st of July as Canada’s national holiday, and an end to the Anglo-Canadian monarchy — both of which she has described essentially as villainous colonial relics.
Would Jackson-Triggs value her opinion if she declared your winery to be in violation of Islamic doctrine?
COMMITMENT 2
Amplify the voices of Black, Indigenous, and all people of colour and increase their representation in the wine world.
Why is this necessary? The majority of the population (and thus consumers of wine) in Canada is of European origin, and indeed viticulture is a uniquely European type of agriculture.
What evidence does Jackson-Triggs have that “Black, Indigenous, and all people of colour” need increased representation in the wine world? Afro-Canadians and Canadian First Peoples combined are a minority, neither of which have a tradition of wine-drinking. Many Asian Canadians come from wine-drinking traditions — such as rice wine (I enjoy good sake), which is pleasant but is not something produced by Jackson-Triggs.
Has Jackson-Triggs ever conducted a study of “BIPOC” Canadians that provided unshakeable evidence that they are clamouring to be ‘let in’ to the Canadian wine industry, but are being barricaded out by greedy, racist White Canadians? Almost certainly not.
It goes on:
Raising Voices
We’ve partnered with Vinequity to help ensure that people who identify as BIPOC are given equitable treatment and access to opportunity to grow and thrive in the Canadian wine industry.
We’re also doing more to help diversify the ranks of the wine industry, especially in leadership roles. To achieve this much-needed goal, we’re collaborating on a scholarship program that will provide marginalized communities with access to high quality wine education and support.
Ah, so an outside force was responsible for pushing Jackson-Triggs into a cultural Maoist mindset!
Let us examine this Vinequity.
I go to Vinequity.ca and click on their “About“ section, and find the usual rhetoric. The founding team consists of Beverly Crandon (Black), Nupur Gogia (appears Dravidian), Nabilah Rawji (again, looks Dravidian), Carrie Rau (Cree), Debbie Shing (Chinese), Olivia Siu (Hong Kong Chinese), and Chanile Vines (Black — and I find it hard to believe that that’s her birth name).
All women, I notice. If they thought founding an organisation like Vinequity was a good way to attract handsome White sommeliers as potential husbands, I would venture to say that they’re mistaken.
A reader might criticise me for including the ethnic origin of these women alongside their names. To that, I would answer: why would that be a problem to them? It was they, not I, who founded an organisation literally based on their ethnic origin – or rather, their lack of a certain one. I have little doubt that any of them would criticise the Council of European Canadians for promoting our own ethnic self-advocacy — yet, being the founders of this Vinequity, they would be hypocrites for doing so.
Let’s return to the “Our Commitments” page on the Jackson-Triggs website now.
COMMITMENT 3
Support diverse Canadian creators
Featured Artists You Should Know
We’ve always been proud of the work we’ve done to support Canadian music. But now we’re doing more to help support artists and musicians from underrepresented and marginalized communities.
Last night, just before clicking off my lamp for the night, I put in Disc 4 of a 2008 compilation set from Madacy Entertainment called ‘The World’s Greatest Composers’. I comfortably went off to sleep listening to renditions of some of the most brilliant works of my ancestors — Handel, Purcell, Bach, Mouret, etc.
I think that my life is no worse off having never listened to Sadé Awele, Mark Clennon, and especially Witch Prophet. (I think Witchfinder General should go find Witch Prophet, haha)
My guess is that the number of Jackson-Triggs employees who listen to this degenerate music is few to none.
Below the “musicians” section, there is a section featuring visual artists.
I will stick with the oil-on-canvas landscape painters whose works I was blessed to view in-person in Wyoming last summer, thank-you very much.
COMMITMENT 4
Representation and building safe spaces.
Proudly supporting safe spaces.
Every Canadian, especially those in underserved and underrepresented communities, deserves to feel welcome, included, and supported. We are privileged to support 2SLGBTQ+ charities by donating $75,000 to provide resources, support, and safe spaces across the country.
This is perhaps the most jaw-dropping statement of them all. In a time when Canadians are going to food banks at an unprecedented level, and dozens of Canadians are overdosing to their deaths daily, this is what Jackson-Triggs thought would be a good value of $75K? Literal safe-spaces for sexual deviants??
It goes on:
Representation Matters
For too long we haven’t represented all the people who enjoy our wine. We’re committed to ensuring more diversity within our own content and marketing campaigns. From the talent on screen to the people behind the camera, we know we need to do more to bring everyone to the table…”
Well, that certainly shouldn’t be difficult nowadays, if what you mean by this is that you intend to portray more Blacks in your video advertising and your web banners. In spite of comprising about 5% of the population of Canada, my guesstimate is that Blacks represent about 25-35% of all characters in advertising I see.
I repeat what I asked earlier in this address: is there unshakeable evidence that “BIPOCS” (which is itself a racist term created to attempt to unite anti-White activists into a common front) are being systematically and specifically excluded from the Canadian wine industry by Eurocanadian owners and managers?
If not, then this is campaign is for nothing. I have a feeling it is – but Jackson-Triggs, under pressure from the likes of Vinequity and perhaps from internal activists — is too afraid to stray from the revolutionary orthodoxy they’ve been herded into.
Last I checked, most traditional Canadian alcoholic beverages — not just wine, but also beer and whisky — are in sales declines. I believe that pre-mixed vodka-based drinks are what is most popular with younger drinkers — drinks such as White Claw, which are tasty enough but otherwise are just glorified pop. It should be the responsibility of Canadian breweries, distilleries, and wineries to enlighten young Eurocanadians about their cultural heritage and encourage them to maintain and treasure it, instead of shaming them for so-called crimes their dead ancestors may or may not have committed.
Guiltily complying with this cultural cuckoldry is not acceptable to somebody who values Eurocanadian history and culture and is not willing to lie down and take it anymore.
It’s bad enough that companies are engaging in this kind of cultural reprogramming on the dime of their private investors. They are also billing the taxpayer for it! The Canadian wine industry is not and has never been financially self-sufficient. The federal government and some of the provincial governments have been providing grants and conditionally-repayable loans (a.k.a. pay us back if you feel like it) to Canadian vineyards and wineries for over twenty years at least. Canadian wineries pocket their profits when sales are good, and losses are socialised to the Canadian taxpayer when sales are not so good.
I have emailed both Vinequity and Jackson-Triggs to ask them if they could furnish me with information on how much they have received in public funding from 2016 to 2022. If I do not receive a reply or they refuse to otherwise disclose it to me, I will file a federal access-to-information request and get back to the readers here at the CEC with that data.
To conclude this address, I feel that in order to be true to myself, I am obliged to boycott Jackson-Triggs, and any other Canadian winery that has become cultural Maoist compliant.
When I go out next to purchase a bottle from one of Alberta’s many private-sector liquor stores, I will be picking out a fine Chilean.
Por la razón o la fuerza.
Thank-you for reading.
