For years, I supported alcohol liberalization, couching my approval in terms used now by the Ford government, such as convenience and consumer choice. But the public pays a cost for plans like these, costs we aren’t equipped or prepared to bear, including overrun hospitals, violence, public disturbances, and more dangerous roads. One’s freedom can quickly become another’s burden — or worse.
Today, I’m not so convinced that alcohol liberalization is wise policy. At the very least, I find it regrettable that we’ve defaulted to rolling ahead despite warnings and maximizing access, instead of considering the trade-offs availability entails. We’re getting more booze by default and a massive corporate giveaway to grocery oligarchs and convenience-store chains whose top priorities certainly aren’t public health and well-being.
The government has shown it isn’t big on listening. It has a history of poor consultation and community engagement, as anyone who recalls Doug Ford’s assault on Toronto city council during an election, the destruction of Ontario Place, or the Greenbelt giveaway will recall. The Tories might say they’re consulting, they might say they care what people think, but in the end, they’re almost certainly going to do whatever they please.
It ought to come as no surprise, then, that we’re now learning that the government was warned last year by experts and advocacy groups to go slow and small on provincial alcohol liberalization. Instead, it steamed ahead, minimizing or disregarding the public-health concerns raised and stunting public discussion, deliberation, and debate.
Reporting for Global News, Isaac Callan and Colin D’Mello write that the Ford government consulted Mothers Against Drunk Driving, Arrive Alive, and the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health before its planned expansion of alcohol sales in convenience and grocery stores throughout the province. The groups pushed for a slower and more cautious ramp-up of alcohol sales and for careful preparation — but the government chose instead to speed up the process.
The experts warn that liberalized alcohol access comes with risks. They specifically take issue with Ford’s plan to allow consumption in-store at 7-Eleven locations. But the Tories are championing the cause nonetheless.
The Canadian Public Health Association also opposed Ford’s plan and cautioned that increased access to alcohol would, as expected, lead to more alcohol-related harms. Those harms include drunk driving and violence, as well as a rise in substance abuse, which produces more of the same, along with long-term health-care issues that are costly for individuals and the public alike.
“The long-term costs to the health care system due to alcohol-related diseases and injuries are substantial. Ontario's health care resources are already stretched, and this policy could exacerbate the burden on hospitals and medical services,” warned the CPHA.
The Ford government is doctrinaire about expanding alcohol availability, giving the policy file outsize care and attention as hospitals fail, classrooms faces challenges, and Ontarians struggle to afford to pay their rent or mortgage. In an immediate sense, the alcohol policy is cheap and easy, bread-and-circus stuff — a great distraction.
In the long term, however, the policy may be very costly indeed. During the pandemic, deaths directly attributed to alcohol consumption reached nearly 3,900 in Canada, with younger generations hit particularly hard. We might expect numbers to dip as we return to something like normal, but greater alcohol availability will likely push them higher than they’d otherwise be — and even higher still, if you factor in related deaths from violence or drunk driving.
The province ought to have at least taken warnings from Mothers Against Drunk Driving, Arrive Alive, the Centre for Addictions and Mental Health, and the Canadian Public Health Association seriously, mainstreamed their concerns, and made them a clear part of public deliberation about how to proceed on the file. Instead, Ford seems to have pushed ahead without preparing the province for the consequences of the policy reforms.
Soon, we could be collectively paying the cost of yet another governance failure by the Tories, who don’t appear to anticipate the consequences of their actions. Perhaps they expect Ontarians will simply deal with their disappointment by indulging in some widely available beer or wine.
Donate