Provincial liquor monopolies’ Achilles’ heel

If you’ve ever wondered why it is that provinces, who have no constitutional authority to regulate either interprovincial or international commerce, seem able to stop you from buying directly from your favourite Scottish distiller or French vintner or the micro-brewery in the province next door, go to the head of the class. That is the real question we should be asking as we contemplate the future of the provincial liquor monopolies. The place to go to defeat these quaint holdovers of a more moralistic and censorious age is not the province. It is Ottawa first, whose legislation confers on provinces their local monopolies, and the courts second, because it is far from clear that Ottawa has this anti-free trade power to give. Read all about it in my latest column for the Ottawa Citizen and other Postmedia papers.