Canadian free trade still isn’t what it first seems | guest column | Columnists

The biggest sectoral carve-out is free trade in alcohol. Wine, beer, and spirits will continue to be regulated under prohibition-era provincial monopolies. It may be 2017 in the rest of the Canadian economy, but when it comes to alcohol, it?s still 1928, the year the federal government passed the Importation of Intoxicating Liquors Act.

July 1 will come and go and the LCBO in Ontario will continue dispensing alcohol under its Soviet-era model and Alberta will continue its discriminatory tax treatment of out-of-province craft beer.

To find out what else is exempted from the agreement requires poring over 160 pages of schedules submitted by each province setting out the vital interests that they believe simply must be shielded from neighbourly competition.

Concur. I just don't go for state monopolies on selling consumer goods of any kind.