After years of complaints by educated wine consumers about the illogical illegality of buying booze from out of province, the lobbying efforts of wineries, the media, a nifty website called freemygrapes.ca and several wine-loving Western politicians are starting to be noticed by average Canadians. And this is making some folks at the provincial liquor boards a little nervous.
The problem lies with a piece of particularly outdated and draconian legislation, going all the way back to 1928, called the Importation of Intoxicating Liquors Act, which makes it illegal to carry any alcoholic beverage across a provincial border, or have it sent by mail or courier. Although this law is not generally enforced (an exception was during the beer strikes when I was a kid), it still causes most Canadian wineries to refuse to sell on the internet and ship orders.
The initial intention of the act was to replace bootlegging, unsafe alcohol and abuse thereof with tightly controlled legal sales via the government. But the current role of the liquor boards has little resemblance to 1928. They now function as marketers and retailers, and have monopolies in most provinces. It is about profit.
Writer Terry David Mulligan got some national media attention recently when he proclaimed he was going to bootleg wine over the border from BC to Alberta, then buy more and bring that back over. There were no cops waiting in either direction. They don’t care.
Kelowna MP Ron Cannan promoted a bill to make it legal to buy wine from Canadian wineries anywhere in the country and have it shipped to your home or carry it home yourself. It is a nice gesture, but many sophisticated consumers and restaurateurs want to go much further, allowing them to buy any beverages, wine, beer or spirits, Canadian or otherwise, for personal consumption or resale, from any jurisdiction in Canada. And why not? This is one country. Here’s hypocrisy at its most basic level: It is legal to carry booze from outside the country into Canada, but not between provinces.
So why don’t they just strike this arguably unconstitutional law down? The barrier is the government-owned liquor monopolies. I’m not sure why they care about the Canadian wine issue, though. Let’s be real: An infinitesimal percentage of Canadians will participate in out-of-province wine buying. It is only for collectors and enthusiasts, because shipping costs prevent any big discount on the average bottle of beer, wine or spirits.
The board’s real fear is the situation at interprovincial borders, where they will lose revenue because of their own pricing strategy, particularly with beer. Booze is too expensive in Nova Scotia, and the rest of Atlantic Canada, too. If Nova Scotia bordered on Quebec, there would be a large drop in beer sales in Nova Scotia, even without ditching this law. This problem exists now in New Brunswick, and making it legal would be great for consumers, as all boards would have to make severe price adjustments.
There are already Haligonians driving to Quebec just because the beer selection is far superior and that is similar to the “let me buy Canadian wine” movement.
The point the NSLC and other boards don’t seem to get about this grassroots lobbying is that it has nothing to do with their big profit generators—mainstream beer and bottom-of-the-barrel wine and spirits—but has everything to do with patriotic people who love quality beverages and want to buy them from all across Canada, even for a premium. It will help our own wineries and breweries, too, as they will sell more across Canada.
No one is looking to truck bathtub gin across our borders. This is about quality, not quantity, and we’re more into bottle aging than bootlegging.
This article appears in Jun 9-15, 2011.
I had no idea. I always stop in Sussex to buy better priced or unavailable scotch.
Not following this law is punishable by catapult! What I wouldn’t give for a bathtub Mint Julep right now!!
Lots of internal contradiction in this story. Author says it has nothing to do with big profit generators right after he cites people trucking cheap beer in from Quebec. Wha??? Says booze is too expensive in NS but a cursory exam shows prices are pretty much the same in the entire region. Says its about quality not quantity, but then wants to bring whatever he wants from wherever he can get it. Some consistency would be nice. The entire cause sounds like some winey snobs wanting special treatment.
For what I buy there is anywhere from 5 to 10 dollars difference, so worth picking up when driving though, but I certainly wouldn’t make a special trip.
People driving to Montreal for no reason other than to buy beer because of the selection? I’d like to see the journalists notes on that one….
Oh snap, this is the guy who suggests that our drunk driving laws are fucking up the restaurant business. Never mind. Oops, by “Montreal” I meant “Quebec”, same difference.
Never knew this was illegal. My family is from a town on the NB and Quebec border and anyone who buys beer, or smokes for that matter and probably wine too, on the NB side could save a good few bucks just to take the 5 minute trip across the border. 24 coors light in NB I believe 39 bucks something like that, Quebec, 25 bucks. People do it all the time. If it’s barely if at all enforced then why have it? Ottawa too. People get their cheap beer in Quebec all the time. Why can they buy the same beer for so much less? It’s BS. Just let us all enjoy the cheap light beer.
Not every beer is that much cheaper, and different brands go on sale, but you can always get something on sale for that price, usually a generic light beer (my favorite! lol). If you go to Costco in Quebec you can get a better selection of beers for dirt cheap. Around a dollar a beer. Why can’t we get that break? Clearly it isn’t deterring maritimers from drinking, we’re the biggest drinkers in the country as far as I know. Certainly up there.
a) anybody who doesn’t see the ‘freemygrapes’ campaign as anything more than an attempt by the BC wine industry to broaden it’s market is a moron, as if any NS wine is sought after by anyone west of Amherst…
b) if you want something bad enough, you can get it. I special ordered scotch through the NSLC before, didn’t pay shipping and retail was whatever it was listed as where it came from (BC or Ontario, can’t remember). Only caveat is that you have to order by the case, but I’m sure wine snobs run in packs of 4 or more so it shouldn’t be hard to find the people to go in on it with you, ah, you probably want a case for yourself anyway, BC grape is that good…. anyway, how does it feel to be a mouthpiece for the BC wine industry?
ProKeds says it all.
The author’s warped sense of self serving logic is no doubt brought on by his affinity for ethanol. If you’re interested in more nonsense you should check out his views on drinking & driving and what he calls “kid friendly bars”.
Canada, generally, takes a puritanical approach to alcohol regulation, and Canadians, polite and obedient as we are, tend to simply accept the protestant perception of “drinking is evil” that is implicit in our law. If I and some friends picked up a couple bottles of wine from the NSLC, drove from Halifax to Summerside PEI for a picnic, (and with the exception of the designated driver) drank those bottles of wine with our sandwiches down on the beach, cleaned up after ourselves and then returned home, we would have harmed absolutely no one and yet we would have violated numerous laws, from transporting alcohol across provincial boundaries to drinking in public and, if someone had three glasses of wine instead of two, the RCMP could probably nab them for intoxication in public too, leading to hundreds if not thousands of dollars in fines. This is absolutely fucking ridiculous. We Canadians need to loosen up, and yes, “…enter the modern world.”
You’ve got a couple different issues there, the only one that this current op-ed piece is dealing with is interprovincial tax revenue. If you have a problem with taxes on alcohol take it up with your MLA.
Booze IS too expensive in NS, mostly because the government sets a minimum price – just like gas regulation. How kind of them to think of our best interests, I mean, gouge us at every fucking opportunity. Thank you MADD.
And then paying out of my taxes to subsidize cashiers getting almost as much as I get paid, plus a generous benefits package and a pension is just too much to bear.
Nova Scotia, where collusion is job one.
MADD has absolutely NOTHING to do with the price of booze, so I don’t know why you would bring that into things. The price of booze is because the government wants to make money – they have been making incredible profits from the NSLC.
I did a work internship for a brewery in NB and learned a lot about the markets. The breweries are unhappy too, because the cost of ingredients (especially corn) has gone up, and yet they tried really hard to keep a case of beer under $20. But, as we know it’s now usually a couple bucks over $20 at least and it’s because of the governments increasing the price in the liquor stores.
Being able to sell online might work in some cases, but the cost of marketing it across the country wouldn’t be worth it. It’s all well and good that you can sell your beer or wine online, but is anyone going to know about it? If they do, have they had an opportunity to taste it? While I agree the laws are obviously outdated, I’m not sure that there’s any real advantage to selling online. As for just buying liquor and bringing it across the border, I used to do it all the time when I lived in Sackville NB and shopped in Amherst, which had a better selection. No one ever stopped me.
“MADD has absolutely NOTHING to do with the price of booze”.
Indirectly they do. The Gov. loves to tax things like cig’s and booze because it makes them look like they are standing up for our best interest, when in reality, they just want the cash. It’s perfect. Efforts like MADD make this all too easy, since the gov. now gets to abide by MADD’s wishes (votes), and make money at the same time. Perfect.
“But, as we know it’s now usually a couple bucks over $20 at least and it’s because of the governments increasing the price in the liquor stores.”
Yes, we have established this.
“It’s all well and good that you can sell your beer or wine online, but is anyone going to know about it?”
This is quite beside the point. Let’s leave that up to the professionals to figure out. You don’t make something illegal because YOU have taken it upon yourself to decide for everyone that it’s not a good option and it takes a lot of work.
“As for just buying liquor and bringing it across the border, I used to do it all the time.. No one ever stopped me.”
So, your solution: “stop being cry-babies and just break the law already”.
MP Ron Cannan was on CBC this AM, his approach is getting more sophisticated and polished, at no point does he mention the “resale” aspect of his bill and instead focuses on ‘little wine lover” in buttfuck anywhere canada who wants to buy some Annapolis wine. As if.