Liquor Privatization

With the SLA convention a week away here is one of the idea coming up. Hey Ryan it is good to be different dare to dream.

Ryan's Blog: http://ryanbater.ca/
25-Jan 09: Liquor Privatization: The Problem with Paternalism
Category: Crown Corporations Posted by: ryan
The cold war over the privatization of liquor stores in Saskatchewan has been stewing under the surface for years in our province. I could go on and on about the virtues of opening our province to the benefits of a free market, but in this blog I will address the issue of liquor availability.


This past weekend I enjoyed a visit in Edmonton, and the difference between our government monopoly system and Alberta’s free market system is like night and day. While driving down Jasper Avenue I noticed about 10 private liquor stores in about as many blocks- all of them open well into the evening and owned by local entrepreneurs. This was an eye opener for a Saskatchewanian like me who is used to a sparse population of government monopoly stores that are closed early in the evening.

There are few who dispute that under a privatized system the number of businesses would increase. The number of stores increased by 134% in the first two years after Alberta privatized their retail liquor stores in 1993. By 2001 the number increased by 318%.

This is music to the ears of Prairie Liberals who prize free markets and know that the number of players is greatest fundamental measure of how ‘free’ a market is. In Saskatchewan consumers could benefit from a free market through competitive selection, pricing, and increased convenient locations. However, there are special interest groups who claim that increased availability will lead to greater consumption and, in turn, more social problems associated with problem drinking.

To make this argument the Saskatchewan Government Employees Union has turned up the heat on this ‘cold war’ in Saskatchewan with a brochure and a video.

The video is confusing at first (I’m not sure I follow the connection between those children and the supposed 'evils' of a free market system), and then quickly becomes annoying. People are innocent until proven guilty and we should all be justifiably irritated by accusations that private enterprise is more immoral or moral than public enterprise. To conclude that potential private owners of liquor stores of would illegally sell alcohol to minors is to convict them of a crime before even having the opportunity to commit it.

The brochure, on the other hand, asserts that increased availability will lead to a myriad of social problems. However, not only has the consumption of alcohol decreased since privatization in Alberta, but nobody has been able to prove a causal relationship between alcohol availability and the degradation of society. I urge you to read this report from the Calgary Police Service and this one from the Canadian Taxpayers Federation for detailed analysis.

The main arguments against a private system are unfounded and based on the idea that government must protect us from making ‘bad’ decisions- that we are incapable of making responsible decisions to govern our own lives. This is not an appropriate role of government. We all have the right to self determination as long as we do not deny that same right of others. The people of Saskatchewan are being punished and robbed of the benefits of a free market because of paternalistic conservative and socialist governments that prefer to impose social order.

Unfortunately, these arguments have largely gone unanswered….until now.