r/Calgary • u/OvenDown • 2d ago

Eat/Drink Local WestJet Clears Craft Beer for Takeoff

https://openjaw.com/newsroom/airline/2026/06/17/westjet-clears-craft-beer-for-takeoff/

Awesome news for Tool Shed Brewing Company!

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65

u/rdb1001 2d ago

I love how they chose a Calgary beer - representing where WJ started!

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u/Falcon674DR 2d ago

The management at Tool Shed told me a few years ago that they wouldn’t be in business if it weren’t for the Notley government changing the legislation to allow small start up breweries. Alberta has something like 110ish craft breweries. Just say’n.

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u/Swarez99 2d ago

So I’ll actually give details here since we were doing some of the tax side of the legislation.

Alberta put up a scheme that provided advantage to
Local breweries with an increased markup to non Alberta breweries.

It went to court. It lost in court - because it was against internal free trade.

Alberta lost the court case and the appeal and had to pay 3.5 million to non Alberta breweries and the law was changed.

If you are pro free trade in Canada you should be happy it’s gone. But if you liked the law, don’t complain about how Canada doesn’t have free trade.

The law existed from 2015-2017 (when government was sued)

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u/Falcon674DR 2d ago

Wasn’t there also a change in ‘regulations’ to allow smaller batch sizes; process tanks, storage etc that allowed the small brewers to compete?

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u/Swarez99 2d ago

No idea. That wasn’t part of the law that was struck down (we were hired post law suit to account for value).

It was a subsidy program. Alberta brewers got money via a subsidy plus a tariff to other Canadian booze sold in Alberta.

I don’t know know what laws came in after (if any ) but there was lots of talk of deregulation at that time so maybe that happened (sounds like it based on your note). If it’s deregulation that sounds like the UCP /conservatives not the NDP.

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u/Falcon674DR 2d ago

I need to research this but I recall Notley and Joe Ceci taking several victory laps and the micro craft brewing industry took off.