The Government of Ontario created the Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO) all the way back in 1927. The Crown corporation represented a first step away from prohibition: alcohol sales were now legal, but tightly controlled by government regulation.
By all accounts, the LCBO has done well for itself. Its 2022-2023 annual report informs us that their 685 stores, 449 wholesale customers, and 389 convenience outlets sold around 1.1 billion litres of alcoholic beverages worth an estimated total of $10 billion.
As a Crown corporation, LCBO is expected to transfer excess revenues to the Government of Ontario as dividends which, we’re told, are used for healthcare, education, and infrastructure. In 2022-2023, that dividend came to $2.58 billion - a record haul. In addition, LCBO reports having made $14.6 million in charitable donations during that year.
All that’s nice, but it effectively amounts to a consumption tax by another name. And that’s something whose value Ontario citizens should be allowed to judge for themselves. If the restrictive policies that shape the LCBO’s mandate are, in fact, effective at protecting the community’s health and well being, then that’s a strong argument in its support. But is it effective?
Well it turns out that we’ve had nearly a century’s worth of data to work with.
Alcohol Retail Policies by Province
All ten provinces restrict alcohol sales to minors and after hours, limit alcohol advertising, and require licenses for bars and restaurants that serve alcohol. But the provinces are conveniently divided by how they allow the retail sale of alcohol: Ontario and the Maritime provinces all impose strict, LCBO-like government oversight, while Quebec and everything west of Ontario are far less invasive:
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