Why does Prohibition-era legislation still underpin most of Canada’s liquor laws?
Help us fix Canada’s antiquated wine laws at winecampaign.ca
I n 2012, the RCMP arrested Gerard Comeau for bringing beer from Pointe-a-la-Croix, Quebec across the river to his home in Campbellton, New Brunswick.
The RCMP reportedly watched Comeau place 12 cases of beer into his car, followed him across the provincial border, and then charged him with contravening the New Brunswick Liquor Control Act, which prohibits having and keeping any liquor not purchased through the province’s liquor board.
Comeau’s case brought national attention to a startling fact about Canada’s liquor regulations: namely, that they are almost completely based on laws passed during prohibition.
As numerous stories in the CBC, Financial Post and the Toronto Star have noted, the New Brunswick liquor board’s power to arrest people who bring liquor into the province — and every other province’s ability to do so — derives from the ninety-year-old federal Importation of Intoxicating Liquors Act (IILA).
Passed in 1928 under pressure from provincial legislatures, the IILA requires that all liquor entering a province be sold to that province’s liquor board. Under the IILA, there is literally no other legal way for liquor to enter a province. As it stands today, simply carrying a bottle of wine or a case of beer from one Canadian province to another could earn you a 12-month jail sentence.
It is difficult to grasp how retrograde a piece of legislation the IILA is without looking at similar legal decisions passed at the time. The bill was passed two months before Canada’s Supreme Court rejected a petition asking the court whether it considered women to be full “persons” under the British North America Act of 1867. In 1928, Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia were still under full provincial prohibition. Toronto lawyer Ian Blue has argued that the IILA is also unconstitutional, because it ignores section 121 of the Constitution Act, which prevents the passage of any laws which would impede the free movement of goods between the provinces.
Comeau’s case has also shed light on the very real ways in which Canada’s antiquated liquor laws inhibit the growth of this country’s beer and wine industries.
By imposing a set of internal tariffs and blocking direct-to-consumer wine shipments of wine across provincial borders, the IILA effectively makes most Canadian wine inaccessible to most Canadians.
If it doesn’t physically impede Canadians from importing wine from other provinces, the IILA also introduces logistical and financial barriers between Canadian wine drinkers and their favourite Canadian winemakers.
As it stands today, it is illegal for someone in Ontario to order wine from a BC winery’s website. Any wine that they order must be purchased through the Liquor Board of Ontario, which introduces unnecessary steps and costs. Most Ontario residents probably find it easier to just stick to buying local Ontario wine.
How is Canada supposed to build a vibrant wine industry in a country where most people are discouraged from drinking anything made outside their province?
Laws surrounding the importation of wine into provinces have softened in recent years. In February of this year, the federal government eliminated federal restrictions allowing Canadians to move liquor across provincial borders, and urged the provinces to follow suite. But only British Columbia, Manitoba and Nova Scotia currently allow their residents to import Canadian-produced wine for personal use.
Canadians won’t really start drinking outside of their province until we simplify this system. And Canada’s nascent wine industry won’t find its legs until it finds a strong base of support among Canadians.
More than two out of every three bottles of wine consumed in the United States is produced in that country. Only one out of every three consumed in Canada is made in Canada. If Canada is to support its winemakers, cumbersome barriers like the IILA must be replaced with legislation that encourages the flow of Canadian wine across provincial borders, rather than doing the opposite.
Help us fix Canada’s antiquated wine laws at winecampaign.ca
