iaink

I dont care if other adults have it, You can still have it cant you? I myself have it too. All that happens is you pay maybe a bit more, but it generates a lot of income for the province that they then dont have to raise through your personal taxes instead.

Any argument that applies to making alcohol cheaper or easier for kids to access would apply just as much to cigarettes I would guess. The only people that argue that cigarettes are too expensive are smokers AFAIK.

And FWIW I agree that there is a strong public health argument to be made for attempting to modify peoples consumption of junk food by using taxation, just as taxation on petrol and vehicle emmission in Europe has helped to drive people towards more environmentally beneficial choices there.

Oink

That's a separate argument and would muddy the waters in this debate. This is not about consumption, its about whether you trust of the invisible hand of demand and supply run our economy or you favour a more Stalinist centralized control approach.

iaink

How much liquor would have to be sold for the taxation on it to fill the void left by the loss of $1.6B a year in LCBO profit. A lot more than the current demand is my guess. I am not convinced that overall consumption would increase enough to cover the gap, and I am pretty sure that increasing alcohol consumption is not generally going to make for a better society anyway, but that I guess is a side issue as we were talking about government income.

Removing the monopoly would mean less market share for the LCBO, so less buying power for them, and higher prices for them. It would mean that they would have to compete on price with businesses that would be trying to buy market share early on, so lower selling prices for the LCBO. Has higher costs and lower margins ever resulted in something other than less profit? there is no argument that removing the monopoly would cut booze prices, it would, but whether that is a good idea in the long run is whats at the heart of the question.

Bare in mind that 1.6B is just the profit, and doesnt include the government income from the existing sales tax and federal excise on those sales.

Oink

Taxation is one thing, but that is abhorrent. If the government wants be in the business of buying and selling a consumer item it should not create an absolute monopoly to do so. Let it compete on the open market. It wouldn't allow monopolies in other areas yet it revels in this one. Its a very slippery slope.

Alan2005

Less than now.

dbd33

One can obtain almost anything in Ontario. Much of it is unreasonably expensive or inappropriately controlled; booze, cheese, eggs, most everything of importance, but, yes, one can obtain these things. The idea that it's proper for the government to operate monoploy control over the supply is, in my view, not Stalinist but an offshoot of religion and wrong on that basis alone.


Should the government seize the burger shops and put burger sellers in the uniforms of the State? That's the Canadian way to influence consumption.

dbd33

Just to be clear. I don't want to abolish the monopoly. I want to abolish the LCBO.

JonboyE

As an issue it is a non-starter. It makes hundreds of millions of dollars for the provincial government and employs thousands of unionized workers. The liberals can't afford to scrap it and the NDP are afraid to.

Oink

Okay, but Stalinism, organized religion or the LCB are all logocentic grand narratives that attempt to totalize the argument. What's next? A government monopoly on gasoline supply? What about coffee, should they nationalize Starbucks or Tim Hortons? How drugs? I bet it could make lots of dosh on jacking up the price of insulin.

Oink

That's precisely the point. We need a single issue, grass-roots organization that once its gained enough power and money can then "persuade" a political party to support our position. A sort of very focused version of the American Tea Party movement.

iaink

I dont see how, please explain how taking 12% on reduced sales and maybe 20% on profits from those sales can add up to a larger number than 12% on more sales and 100% of the profits made under monopoly conditions with huge buying power... It doesnt add up.

Are you proposing some sort of alcohol super tax to fill the void? Factor in the need of private business to make a profit and pay shareholder dividends etc and there is no way it would work?

Oink

That's no justification for doing something that is categorically wrong. Maybe it could start saving money by cutting a few public sector jobs, like LCB employees for instance.

Steve_

I rarely drink so I don't give a crap really, and I do like that they don't sell booze in the supermarkets and it does seem to make it significantly more difficult for minors to get their hands on it, so less drunk yobs floating about.

In Alberta there is no direct provincial control like there is in Ontario, however the govt. licenses the wholesalers and there is only one, so that's a monopoly and that is why the prices are much higher.

The thing that irks me more is how the securities markets work in Canada, with each province having their own regulator, which is crazy. The tories are trying to make it national but as per usual Québec objects. But it creates an oligopolistic market for securities trading which clearly can't be in the economic interests of Canada.

Novocastrian

We could call it the Canadian Bottle Party.

Steve_

But there have been duties and excise on booze for many years, at one point it was the primary way governments got revenue.

Booze is seeing as having a negative impact on society, prohibition obviously didn't work but without question the system of regulation in Canada is a holdover from prohibition.