The Canada we know today, with thickets of trade barriers between provinces, is not the one our founders intended. One of the clearest statements of the founders’ intent came from…
Montreal, November 14, 2019 – While Canada continues to negotiate free trade agreements with numerous countries, the provinces maintain obstacles to trade within our own borders. The MEI and the Canadian…
In the middle of a federal election, the best example of bold political leadership has come from a province – Alberta. Premier Jason Kenney just announced the unilateral removal of…
The west has always led the fight for free trade within Canada, and yesterday, Alberta was proud to set a new standard for openness and free enterprise by announcing real…
Alberta will drop half of its exceptions to the Canada Free Trade Agreement, Premier Jason Kenney announced Wednesday. The province also plans to review the remaining exceptions and "get as close…
OTTAWA — The federal government has introduced legislation that it says will remove a final federal barrier to the easier flow of beer, wine and spirits across provincial and territorial…
Montreal, March 26, 2019 – Despite the Supreme Court’s decision to maintain the status quo in the Comeau case, Canadians continue to strongly support the idea of eliminating obstacles to…
Halifax, NS, March 13, 2019 – A New Canadian Partnership for domestic free trade could produce economic benefits for Canadians that rival those of international free trade agreements. That’s the…
This paper was prepared by Ian Brodie, associate professor of political science at the University of Calgary and fellow of the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies. It was produced in…
The Alberta government is opening a new front in its beer war with other provinces by targeting Ontario for what it says are its unfair trade barriers to Alberta-made suds…
With talk of international free trade deals filling Canadian newspapers, the issue of interprovincial trade largely remains absent. To fill that void, three non-profits are holding a one-day conference in…
Canada’s premiers have agreed in principle to reduce barriers limiting the amount of alcohol that can move across provincial and territorial borders, but failed to produce clear timelines or details…
Montreal, April 19, 2018 – The Supreme Court missed a historic opportunity to free the Canadian economy from its numerous trade barriers. In its unanimous decision, handed down today, the…
Howard Anglin is the Executive Director of the Canadian Constitution Foundation, which has supported Gérard Comeau’s case, along with his attorneys Ian Blue, Arnold Schwisberg, Mikael Bernard, and Daria Peregoudova. Barriers to…
It seems inevitable that the Supreme Court of Canada’s R. v. Comeau decision, in what will forever be known as “the Beer Case,” will go down as controversial and perhaps even deeply unpopular. There’s…
The Supreme Court of Canada's decision in the Comeau case on Thursday will disappoint many who were hoping for stronger protections for free trade within Canada's borders. That surely includes anyone whose weekend plans involved…
The Supreme Court of Canada heard a case this past December in which one side argued that Section 121 has been interpreted too narrowly for the past hundred years or…
According to a new Ipsos poll commissioned by the Canadian Constitution Foundation (CCF) to mark Constitution Day, Canadians overwhelmingly believe that trade across our country should be free and seamless.…
Liquor legislation can be a contentious subject within the foodservice industry — so much so that Restaurants Canada launched its Raise the Bar report card on provincial liquor policies for bars and…
...there is no good reason to section off the country into distinct markets with limited access to a full selection of goods and services, while there are many good reasons—tens…
You might think that a country actively courting international free trade deals around the world, from Europe to China, would make some effort to guarantee free trade within its borders.…
The Supreme Court of Canada heard a case this past December in which one side argued that Section 121, which guarantees free trade between the provinces, has been interpreted too…
The joke on social media following the recent decision by the Alberta government to boycott B.C. wine was British Columbians saying, “More for us!” But obstructing trade between Canada’s provinces…
An overwhelming majority of Canadians want trade openness. According to an Ipsos poll commissioned last November by the MEI, the Canadian Constitution Foundation, and the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies,…
If there is something that the current wine war between Alberta and British Columbia underlines, it is the tenuous access that Canadian wineries in one province have to consumers in…
The joke on social media following the Alberta government’s decision to boycott B.C. wine was British Columbians saying, “More for us!” But obstructing trade between Canada’s provinces is no laughing…
In an ironic twist, British Columbia’s wine industry is looking to tap Asian markets for its blends after being banned in the Alberta market. The spat began in January when…
The clash between B.C. and Alberta goes a lot deeper than the current headlines. At least 10 or 20 years of ruthlessly organized, internationally endowed, wildly overblown scare propaganda against…
Australia has filed a complaint about Canada’s rules around wine sales with the World Trade Organization. The complaint filed Friday argues that Canada’s distribution, licensing and sales measures discriminate against…
Gerard Comeau decided to contest a CAN$300 fine for bringing legally purchased beer and spirits from one Canadian province to another. Five years later, the Canadian Supreme Court is reassessing the case, and…
The obvious reason why Gérard Comeau was in the Supreme Court of Canada on Dec. 6 and 7 is that in 2012, he bought beer in Quebec and drove it home…
Way back in 1927, at the tail end of the prohibition era and just before Canada's current legislation governing the inter-provincial transportation and sale of liquor and spirits was passed,…
There’s been a lot of talk about free trade lately. This is due in part to the renegotiation of NAFTA, and to the Trans-Pacific Partnership that many governments are trying…
Five years after a New Brunswick man fought for the right to buy cheaper beer in Quebec and bring it back across the border, his case will be argued Wednesday…
As the 150th anniversary year of Canada’s founding draws to a close, a mountain of paperwork is accumulating at the Supreme Court in the case Regina versus Comeau, which is scheduled to…
Five years ago, when Gerard Comeau contested a $300 fine for transporting liquor across provincial borders, he had no idea that he was planting the seeds of a legal battle…
Eighty-nine per cent of respondents said Canadians should be able to bring any legal product from one province to another — which is currently illegal when it comes to alcohol.…
À l’aube de l’audition de l’affaire Comeau en Cour suprême, un sondage révèle que la très grande majorité des Canadiens seraient favorables à l’abolition des barrières commerciales entre les provinces.…
The Canadian Federation of Independent Business estimates that internal barriers “cost Canada’s economy as much as $14-billion each year.” Eliminating these barriers would disadvantage narrow provincial interests in the short…
One of the motivations behind the founding of the Canadian federation was that, with the United States rejecting free-trade deals, there needed to be a unified market between the future…
If you're on vacation abroad somewhere this summer and find yourself explaining to people over dinner what makes Canada so unique and special, use the story about Gerard Comeau and…
The newly minted Canadian Free Trade Agreement is no great accomplishment. Instead of free exchange, most of the deal’s convoluted text entrenches protectionism, with some 130 pages of exemptions. All…
In sum, for all of the participants’ labours, we are left, 150 years after Confederation, with an economy in which internal trade remains markedly less free than it is within…
Fourteen cases of beer and three bottles of liquor that a certain Gérard Comeau of Tracadie-Sheila, N.B., brought from Quebec to New Brunswick in 2012, are once again in contention.…
No legitimate public policy objective is served by legislating different creamer containers, beer bottle sizes, organic kale standards, or maple syrup grades. But item #7 on carbon pricing policy differences…
As the National Post has reported, in October 2012, Gérard Comeau, a New Brunswick man, was arrested for returning from Quebec with cheaper beer. Unbeknownst to Comeau, a provincial law…
Provincial booze monopolies are unfair and unnecessary. They have no economic or social justification; they exist either as an opaque way of raising government revenues, or to serve the financial…
