I have sometimes told a joke when I am speaking at wine and liquor law events: “there are two speeds for liquor policy change in Canada – glacial and backwards”. Sadly, the current political situation regarding the internal trade barriers for alcohol sales is proving that our provincial politicians regard the “glacial” description as absolutely appropriate for their “efforts” in this area.
To summarize, in February of this year, Federal Minister of Internal Trade stated that Canada would have its internal trade barriers regarding alcohol removed “within 30 days”. Prime Minister Carney later revised this optimistic time estimate and stated that the job would be done by “Canada Day” (July 1st).
Yesterday, Canada’s Committee on Internal Trade issued a press release “Committee on Internal Trade Meets to Strengthen Canada’s Economy” in which they happily informed us that most of the provinces (Newfoundland is a hold-out) have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to start work on a national system for direct to consumer sales of alcohol that is slated to be rolled out by May 2026. You read that correctly … no announcement of legislation, no firm commitments, no framework of an agreement … they have signed a “memo” in which they agree to start work on this … and perhaps finish that work by the middle of next year.
This is a stunning development both in the affront to earlier federal promises and its almost complete disregard for the need to help Canada’s wine businesses escape from absurd post-Prohibition era regulation. It appears that the provinces view both Minister Anand and Prime Minister Carney as part-time comedians in respect of their promises of quick action. For the provinces … there is no rush, they are quite pleased to be involved in “glacial” reform efforts to address a problem, which they appear to have not thought about … even though it has existed for about a hundred years.
The remarks of Quebec Minister, Christopher Skeete, are telling (see Nine Provinces, Yukon Aim to Launch DTC Alcohol Sales by May 2026). He states that the provinces are “taking their time” to “ensure they get it right” regarding “something that’s never been done before in Canadian history”. For Pete’s sake … Canada is in serious trouble if we can’t solve an issue as simple as this one in a reasonable time frame. Minister Skeete (and the others) might wish to venture outside their walled alcohol fortresses and realize that this problem simply doesn’t exist in the rest of the world.
We simply need a national personal exemption for alcohol sales and shipment, just like most countries on Earth. Perhaps our new Prime Minister will eventually take offense and act at the federal level when he realizes that these provincial promises are not worth the memo (paper) that they are written on. Glacial provincial action on important issues is simply not acceptable in the current world. Is this comedy or tragedy? Perhaps both as far as the provinces are concerned.