This article supplied by Troy Media.

By Samantha Dagres and Alessia Iafano

Canada’s booze trade is a protectionist mess.

Have you ever stopped to wonder who decides what beers you’re allowed to buy? Probably not. But every time you wander into a beer store you’re browsing a lineup handpicked not just by brewers, but by bureaucrats. Your choices are less about your taste and more about politics.

Sure, you’ll find Ontario staples like Mill Street. But if you’ve got a taste for an award-winning B.C. wine, a Quebec microbrew or a small-batch rye from Saskatchewan, prepare for disappointment. Welcome to the great Canadian alcohol paradox: it’s easier to buy French wine than a bottle of craft gin from the next province over.

This absurdity gave rise to the “free the beer” movement: an effort to let Canadian alcohol flow across provincial borders like, well, an actual country. The issue hit the headlines a few years back when Gérard Comeau of New Brunswick had the gall to go on a beer run to Quebec. Instead of paying a nearly $300 fine for that cross-border booze crime, he lawyered up and took the fight to the Supreme Court. Spoiler alert: he lost. The court ruled that there’s no constitutional right to free trade within Canada. Yes, you read that correctly.

Still, Comeau’s case lit a fire under the debate. Losing the battle doesn’t always mean losing the war. Since then, there’s been modest movement toward sanity. Ottawa even announced it wanted to liberalize domestic alcohol trade earlier this year. One problem: it can’t. Canada’s Constitution gives provinces—not the federal government—control over alcohol sales. And many provinces are still clinging to their liquor fiefdoms.

To be fair, a few have started to uncork their markets. Manitoba lets you order from out-of province businesses. B.C., Alberta, Saskatchewan and Nova Scotia have partially openmarkets. The rest—including Ontario—are still stuck in prohibition-era thinking.

Want to know how much Ontario’s LCBO monopoly costs you? Check your next receipt. Then subtract about one-third of the pre-tax price: that’s the LCBO’s average markup. While grocery stores survive on razor-thin margins, the government liquor store is pouring itself a nice fat profit at your expense. But it’s not just your wallet that suffers. That monopoly also limits your choices. In Ontario it’s easier to get wine from Spain than from Quebec. Welcome to Canada.

Yes, there’s been some progress. Ontario has cracked open the door to reform with recent steps to expand direct-to-consumer sales. And now, it’s making noise about taking the lead on building a national framework that would finally let Canadians buy booze from across provincial borders without jumping through flaming hoops.

Earlier this year, Ontario signed memoranda of understanding with B.C., Alberta, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, New Brunswick, P.E.I. and Nova Scotia—agreements aimed at reducing trade barriers and building bilateral deals. Several other provinces have done the same.

The goal? A pan-Canadian framework to allow direct-to-consumer alcohol sales, where producers can ship across the country and consumers can buy what they actually want.

As of 2024, the domestic alcohol market was worth $15.5 billion for Canadian-made products—or $26.2 billion when you include imports. It’s not just common sense—it’s good economics. Smaller producers in particular stand to gain. In fact, 76 per cent of Canadian wineries say direct-to-consumer sales would increase their revenue in the next year.

And for consumers? Better access, better variety and—brace yourself—possibly lower prices.

The first framework agreement was promised with Manitoba by the end of June. That deadline has come and gone Still, for those who’ve been fighting to pry Canada’s alcohol trade from the grip of protectionism and provincial monopolies, the finish line is at least on the horizon. If Premier Doug Ford wants to live up to his “open for business” motto, now’s the time. Honour the commitments. Finish the job. Then maybe—just maybe—Canadians will finally be able to toast with a beer from another province without breaking the law.

Samantha Dagres is the communications manager and Alessia Iafano is a research intern at the Montreal Economic Institute, a think tank with offices in Montreal, Ottawa and Calgary.

Troy Media empowers Canadian community news outlets by providing independent, insightful analysis and commentary. Our mission is to support local media in helping Canadians stay informed and engaged by delivering reliable content that strengthens community connections and deepens understanding across the country.

From LifeSiteNews

By Jonathon Van Maren

Once again, a government report affirmed what every Canadian should know by now: People are being killed by euthanasia because they cannot access the care they actually need and in some cases are denied that care.

The “choice” that is left to them is a lethal injection. Ontario’s Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) Death Review Committee’s (MDRC) latest report, “Evaluating Incurability, Irreversible Decline, and Reasonably Foreseeable Natural Death,” highlights this fact once again.

As Dr. Ramona Coelho, an advocate for people with disabilities and one of the most eloquent opponents of Canada’s MAiD regime highlighted in her analysis of the report, Health Canada dictates that a “person can only be considered incurable if there are no reasonable and effective treatments available (and) explicitly state that individuals cannot refuse all treatments to render themselves incurable, and thereby qualify for MAiD.”

However, the MDRC’s report cites cases that do not appear to qualify:

Consider Mrs. A: isolated, severely obese, depressed, and disconnected from care; she refused treatment and social support but requested MAiD. Instead of re-engaging her with care, MAiD clinicians deemed her incurable because she refused all investigations, and her life was ended.

Or Mr. B: a man with cerebral palsy in long-term care, he voluntarily stopped eating and drinking, leading to renal failure and dehydration. He was deemed eligible under Track 1 because his death was consequently considered “reasonably foreseeable.” No psychiatric expertise was consulted despite signs of psychosocial distress.

Or Mr. C: a man in his 70s with essential tremor, whose MAiD provider documented that his request was mainly driven by emotional suffering and bereavement.

In short, Coelho concludes, “Canada’s legal safeguards are failing. Federal guidelines are being ignored. The public deserves to know: Is Canada building a system that truly protects all Canadians – or one that expedites death for the vulnerable?” It has been clear what kind of system we have created for some time, which is why Canada is considered a cautionary tale even in the UK, where assisted suicide advocates violently and indignantly object to any comparisons of their proposed legislation and the Canadian regime.

The National Post also noted examples found in the MRDC’s report, noting that: “A severely obese woman in her 60s who sought euthanasia due to her ‘no longer having a will to live’ and a widower whose request to have his life ended was mainly driven by emotional distress and grief over his dead spouse are the latest cases to draw concerns that some doctors are taking an overly broad interpretation of the law.”

None of this seems to concern the federal government, much less law enforcement. Horror stories are simply not addressed, as if ignoring them means that they did not happen. Constant revelations of lawbreaking are met with silence. “A quarter of all Ontario MAiD providers may have violated the Criminal Code,” journalist Alexander Raikin warned last year in The Hub. “Does anyone care?” In fact, Ontario’s euthanasia regulators had tracked 428 cases of possible criminal violations – without a single criminal charge being laid.

“Canada’s leaders seem to regard MAiD from a strange, almost anthropological remove: as if the future of euthanasia is no more within their control than the laws of physics; as if continued expansion is not a reality the government is choosing so much as conceding,” Elaina Plott Calabro wrote in The Atlantic recently. “This is the story of an ideology in motion, of what happens when a nation enshrines a right before reckoning with the totality of its logic.”

There is an opportunity to stop the spread of Canada’s MAiD regime. MPs Tamara Jansen and Andrew Lawton are championing the “Right to Recover” Act, which would make it illegal to euthanize someone whose sole qualifying condition is mental illness. I urge each and every reader to get involved today.

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Jonathon Van Maren

Jonathon’s writings have been translated into more than six languages and in addition to LifeSiteNews, has been published in the National Post, National Review, First Things, The Federalist, The American Conservative, The Stream, the Jewish Independent, the Hamilton Spectator, Reformed Perspective Magazine, and LifeNews, among others. He is a contributing editor to The European Conservative.