LCBO's Ontario protectionism has been a PITA. We used to at least be able to pick up some Quebec beers like Maudite and Fin du Monde, if not some of the smaller breweries. Would be nice to see a reversal of that.
I gather that these kinds of barriers have likely been up for a very long time, long before I was old enough to really understand them.
So here I am at 48 years old trying to wrap my brain around why there were internal trade barriers in the first place. What reasons were given when they were first put up?
There are four categories of trade barriers in Canada: natural barriers such as geography, prohibitive barriers such as restrictions on the sale of alcohol, technical barriers such as vehicle weight standards and regulatory barriers such as licensing and paperwork requirements.
The 2017 CFTA was intended to cut down on some of these barriers, but all provinces and territories negotiated exemptions for various reasons, ranging from different safety regulations across provinces, to different language requirements, to industry protectionism.
It's not clear right now which barriers the feds can unilaterally eliminate (and whether we agree with all of them), but I guess we'll find out within the next week or so.