Today\’s Throne Speech of Canada\’s federal government indicates that the federal law which restricts the interprovincial shipment of alcohol will be amended to permit the interprovincial shipment of beer and spirits. This move would extend the previous amendments of Bill C-311, which only applied to wine, so that all alcohol is covered. The text of throne speech simply says this: \”our Government will amend the Importation of Intoxicating Liquors Act to allow Canadians to take beer and spirits across provincial boundaries for their own use\”.
Unfortunately, the previous amendments which related to wine only have had limited effectiveness due to various provincial government moves which have blocked the spirit of the amendments: see Shipping Law Update for details. It is not clear whether or not the federal government would also consider introducing a \”national personal exemption\” as part of the new amendments – which would have the effect of completely opening up the country to interprovincial shipment.