Giving Ontarians greater choice and convenience in buying alcohol won’t significantly increase social harms, including drunk driving

Three large health organizations are now criticizing Ontario’s government for its roll-out of alcohol in private stores. The Canadian Mental Health Association, the Canadian Public Health Association, and the Canadian Cancer Society have all called on Doug Ford’s government to create a strategy to mitigate the problems associated with liberalization.

Specifically, they worry that “more death, cancer diagnoses, and health-care strain” are coming because Ontarians can now buy alcohol at more outlets that are not government-owned by the Liquor Control Board of Ontario. All those issues are worth worrying about, of course, but is there any evidence that liberalizing where Ontarians can buy alcohol will make them worse? Not really.

First off, retailers who already sell age-restricted goods actually perform quite well in terms of active age-gating. Data from 2018 show that Ontario convenience stores have a 95.7-per cent success rate when it comes to properly asking for ID. In contrast, LCBO data from roughly the same period show that only 67 per cent of secret-shoppers in Toronto were asked for ID by LCBO employees. That is a stark but not surprising difference, given that private retailers have skin in the game when it comes to asking for ID. Failing to ask comes with harsh penalties for private retailers, whereas an LCBO with a bad track record of asking for ID doesn’t really face consequences.

Another major concern of the health organizations, echoed by OPSEU, the LCBO’s retail union, is that increased consumer choice and retail density will lead to an increase in impaired driving. But, again, the data do not show this to be the case. A thorough analysis by University of Waterloo economist Anindya Sen shows that provincial crime and traffic death/injury rates do not vary with the degree of regulation. Nor are per capita alcohol sales higher in places in Canada with deregulated access.

Data from Alberta also confirm this. Alberta fully privatized its alcohol retail sector in 1993. At the time, there were only 208 alcohol retail outlets; now there are more than 1,500. Before privatization, only 2,200 different products were available in government liquor stores. Today Alberta consumers have access to more than 31,000 different liquor products. Despite the greater breadth and convenience of choice in Alberta the number of cases of impaired driving has dropped significantly since the 1990s. The data only go back to 1998, five years after privatization, but the implications are clear: There were 12,597 incidents of impaired driving in Alberta in 1998. Last year there were only 8,197, a decline of 4,400 incidents. The rate per 100,000 people was 434 in 1998. Last year it was 174.

Not privatizing liquor sales would be costly for Ontario taxpayers. Not allowing private retailers to sell spirits, for example, leaves $100-$120 million in government revenues on the table. With a budget deficit of over $6 billion a year, Ontario should be looking to find savings by continuing to liberalize, not backtracking.

If Ontario simply stopped building new LCBO retail stores and let private stores operate and compete in selling spirits, it would save $106 million after one year, $590 million after five years and $1.3 billion after 10 years. If it were to follow Alberta’s lead and restrict the LCBO to being the wholesaler of alcohol, it would save $563 million per year. At the five-year mark accumulated savings would be $2.815 billion, and at 10 years, $5.63 billion. This is a big chunk of money that the province is simply wasting by persisting with the LCBO retail model.

Concerns about alcohol liberalization are not backed by evidence. Liberalization is good for consumers and taxpayers and needs to continue.

Originally published here