{"id":691675,"date":"2026-05-25T01:22:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-25T01:22:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/691675\/"},"modified":"2026-05-25T01:22:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-25T01:22:11","slug":"no-country-for-alcohol-sales-but-then-canada-got-lucky","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/691675\/","title":{"rendered":"No country for alcohol sales \u2013 but then Canada got lucky"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

A government-run liquor store in Vancouver in August, 2022. Boycotts of U.S. alcohol products in have given Canadian wine, spirit and beer makers a lifeline.DARRYL DYCK\/The Canadian Press<\/p>\n

John Turley-Ewart is a contributing columnist for The Globe and Mail, a regulatory compliance consultant and a Canadian banking historian.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a joke making the rounds right now at many bars. One fella says to another: \u201cI lost two friends last year. One died and the other quit drinking.\u201d All good jokes have a measure of truth to them and this one draws laughs for that reason.<\/p>\n

Across Canada the volume of alcohol sales fell 3 per cent between March, 2024, and March, 2025, according to a recent report<\/a> released by Statistics Canada. This decline isn\u2019t a one-off outlier. The findings confirm a trend: This \u201cwas the fourth consecutive year volume sales have declined.\u201d<\/p>\n

Happenstance, however, has given Canadian wine, spirits and beer producers a fighting chance to survive.<\/p>\n

Ontario to allow alcohol to be sold until 4 a.m. during World Cup<\/a><\/p>\n

Canadians are more than sober-curious. There is a cultural shift afoot that questions the need for booze to grease the social wheels between friends and family and the hangovers that follow. Business is confronting a market where high cost, wellness, lifestyle choices, more cannabis use and the rampant adoption of GLP-1 drugs such as Ozempic (which appear<\/a> to curb alcohol cravings) are all reducing demand across demographics. <\/p>\n

Total federal and provincial government alcohol-related revenues fell by 4.2 per cent to $13.1-billion during the same period, in \u201cthe largest annual decrease since Statistics Canada began tracking the series in 2004\/ 2005.\u201d<\/p>\n

Over the last five years the stock valuations of many public companies that produce and sell alcohol have headed in one direction, down. Diageo<\/a>, a British multinational company that produces Canadian-made Crown Royal whisky among other products, has seen its share price fall from roughly US$200 in 2021 to about US$86 today.<\/p>\n

Dutch beer maker Heineken announced in February of this year it was cutting 6,000 jobs due to weak demand. CEO Dolf van den Brink is stepping down from Heineken at the end of this month.<\/p>\n

Bourbon is a case study of the problem. One of the largest Kentucky producers of the spirit, Jim Beam, put its primary production on pause at the start of 2026 with no signs of re-starting it any time soon. The Wall Street Journal reports<\/a> that the amount of bourbon sitting in reserve today is sufficient to meet demand for the next decade.<\/p>\n

The latest quarterly report from French spirits producer Pernod Ricard, which owns brands such as Jameson and the Glenlivet, suggests there is little relief in sight. Its sales<\/a> in the U.S. are down 15 per cent, in China they dropped by 28 per cent and in Europe they fell 3 per cent. Pernod Ricard also saw sales decline in Mexico and Brazil.<\/p>\n

Their one glimmer of hope, despite falling alcohol consumption, is Canada, where it reported \u201csolid growth\u201d and \u201cgood momentum,\u201d thanks in large part to Corby Spirit and Wine, a leading producer of Canadian-made spirits and wines that Pernod Ricard has a majority stake in.<\/p>\n

Statistics Canada also captured a surprising outcome<\/a> for Canadian producers: \u201cIn 2024\/2025, Canada imported $1-billion of alcoholic beverages from the United States, down 5.4 per cent from the previous fiscal year.\u201d And yet, \u201cduring the same period, exports to the United States totalled $1.4-billion, up 4.1 per cent year over year.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Ontario the strength of Canadian wine, spirit and beer producers was boosted by Premier Doug Ford\u2019s boycott of U.S. alcohol, which began in March, 2025. By July of that year the sales<\/a> of Ontario wine had increased by 60 per cent in that province.<\/p>\n

By the end of 2025, the LCBO, Ontario\u2019s Crown agency responsible for the distribution of alcohol in the province, reported<\/a> a \u201c20 per cent growth in demand for Ontario products\u201d and a 19 per cent increase in sales of wines produced in other parts of Canada.<\/p>\n

If one spends enough time around history, it becomes clear that many business and economic policy decisions are made by governments with incomplete information and muddled execution. Unanticipated outcomes are common.<\/p>\n

Boycotts of U.S. alcohol products in Ontario and other provinces have given Canadian wine, spirit and beer makers a lifeline in a tumultuous market they otherwise would never have been offered.<\/p>\n

Should one be inclined, their success is worth raising a glass to.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: A government-run liquor store in Vancouver in August, 2022. Boycotts of U.S. alcohol…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":691676,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[901,888,902,879,877,903,45,49,48,876,895,896,891,878,875,46,549,295,894,887,914,880,881,893,889,890,884,904,885,909,910,912,907,911,905,908,882,898,899,714,897,906,865,61,900,892,886,883,913],"class_list":["post-691675","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-alberta","tag-arts-news","tag-bc","tag-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news-video","tag-british-columbia","tag-business","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-canada-news","tag-canada-sports","tag-canada-sports-news","tag-canada-trafficcanada-weather","tag-canadian-breaking-news","tag-canadian-news","tag-economy","tag-education","tag-environment","tag-federal-government","tag-foreign-news","tag-globe-and-mail","tag-globe-and-mail-breaking-news","tag-globe-and-mail-canada-news","tag-government","tag-life-news","tag-lifestyle","tag-local-news","tag-manitoba","tag-national-news","tag-new-brunswick","tag-newfoundland-and-labrador","tag-northwest-territories","tag-nova-scotia","tag-nunavut","tag-ontario","tag-pei","tag-photos","tag-political-news","tag-political-opinion","tag-politics","tag-politics-news","tag-quebec","tag-sports-news","tag-technology","tag-travel","tag-trudeau","tag-us-news","tag-world-news","tag-yukon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/691675","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=691675"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/691675\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/691676"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=691675"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=691675"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=691675"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}