Time to Level the Playing Field for Beer and Wine Sales in Ontario

Report recommends a more competitive system for alcohol sales.

August 21, 2014

ONTARIO, CANADA – The lack of competition in Ontario’s system for alcoholic beverage retailing causes higher prices for consumers and foregone government revenue, according to a new report from the C.D. Howe Institute.

The report, “Uncorking a Strange Brew: The Need for More Competition in Ontario’s Alcoholic Beverage Retailing System,” calls for a more competitive system in alcoholic beverage retailing in Ontario, which would result in increased government revenue, lower prices and more convenience for consumers.

“Ontario’s system of alcoholic beverage retailing is a holdover of the temperance movement in the 1920s,” stated the report’s authors. “As a result, Ontario consumers have restricted choice in where they can buy their alcoholic beverages, and they pay higher prices for beer compared to customers shopping in Quebec grocery stores.”

The report details how government-created quasi-monopolies for wine and beer retailing impose excessive costs on consumers and restaurants, restrict their menu of choices and limit the accessibility of stores retailing alcohol.

The report offers policy recommendations that would help level the playing field:
1. Allow grocery and convenience stores to sell beer and wine.
2. Open up the right to operate off-winery stores.
3. Further open up beer retailing by licensing other retail outlets.

The authors conclude that these changes would increase the choices available — and reduce prices — for Ontario consumers.

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