Crossing provincial borders with beer will remain a federal criminal offence even after Ottawa’s Bill C-311 gets royal assent, which is expected later this week.
That, however, has not kept Rich Coleman, who is the minister in charge of alcohol policy in B.C., from devising policies that contravene the federal law.
Coleman announced a policy in early June allowing B.C. consumers to carry into B.C. from other provinces (though not order online):
•nine litres of wine;
•three litres of spirits; and
•a combined total of 25.6 litres of beer, cider and coolers.
Business in Vancouver informed Coleman that the federal Importation of Intoxicating Liquors Act will continue to forbid anyone from crossing a provincial boundary with beer or spirits even after it is tweaked to allow cross-border wine transport.
“That’s OK because we say you can do that provincially,” Coleman responded.
He then explained why he believes the federal law was not amended to allow interprovincial beer transport, implying that the point of the federal legal change was to enable direct-to-consumer shipments for wine – something Coleman still says is against the law in B.C.
“Beer and spirits are not treated the same as wine in our jurisdiction and in Alberta’s jurisdiction,” Coleman said. “You buy your beer at the liquor store. There’s not a brewery that can direct deliver it to you at your home. It may come to that one day, but the reality is that wine is the only [alcoholic beverage category] that has the direct delivery ability in the system.”
Beer in B.C. is sold through either Brewers Distributors or the British Columbia Liquor Distribution Branch.
Brewers Distributors is a private joint venture company owned by Labatt Breweries of Canada and Molson Breweries for the wholesale distribution of beer and the collection of returnable, refillable and recyclable beer containers within the four western Canadian provinces, the Northwest Territories and Yukon.
@GlenKorstrom
