One of the most baffling things I came across here in British Columbia is the monopoly that the government has on liquor sales. If you want to buy any alcohol you will have to go through a government owned and managed store, or through a private store knowing that the distribution network that got the booze to that private store is owned by the provincial authorities who have also set the retail price. For a Dutchman used to his freedoms this was not just inexplicable, it was scary, I could honestly not believe that such a thing still existed. It gets scarier if you look at the underlying mechanics that are at work here, especially the collusion of diverse interest groups that seek to maintain the status quo at all cost.

We all know the origins of a state monopoly on alcohol distribution. It dates back to the puritan days where any form of pleasure or fun was deemed to be close to immorality and an area where the authorities had to step in to prevent further reckless behaviour by the masses. They have to work; we cannot let them get drunk. Think of prohibition in the US. So, tightly controlled distribution led to a government cartel that proved to be extremely lucrative and a source of ongoing, and over time increasing, revenues. In a number of provinces in Canada and in Sweden it continues to exist to this very day. In British Columbia the mark-up on a bottle of liquor is phenomenal, I believe it is close to 90% resulting in the provincial government netting over a billion dollars in profits annually. Bizarre, especially in a province that has a nascent wine industry; the Okanagan Valley benefits from a moderate climate and while not in the Napa and Sonoma range that region is producing some very exciting wines. There are also great microbreweries here, all of whom have unlimited access to fresh clean mountain water in order to brew excellent beer that is guaranteed to not give you a headache.

The scary part came in when a new government, somewhat right of the center, started to privatize and cut back government involvement and it was only a matter of time before the liquor distribution branch came under review. That review was of course not very favourable and the idea to privatize the whole apparatus was recommended. Great idea as it came packaged together with scrapping hundreds of other related laws and regulations that were all designed to take the fun out of drinking. Privatization however set the alarm bells ringing in the offices of union leaders, as all employees in liquor distribution branches are unionized public workers and enjoy generous benefits. I understand they oppose privatization, if you are making twenty bucks an hour at the checkout and your buddies next door at Safeway are making ten bucks, then yes, privatization is something to be very fearful about. The unions then started a campaign, teaming up with a number of left leaning municipal councils, to spread the word of the danger of privatization. Drunkenness, public disturbances, all those great arguments used by the puritanical conservatives of the distant past were brushed off to prevent market forces from playing a role in retailing and consuming alcohol. The point is that they could not care less about alcohol’s adverse side effects; they care about their jobs and the unique benefits that the status quo provides them with by working in an area that is nicely sheltered from the laws of supply and demand. And who is footing the bill? Right, the consumer. The number of organized employees in the liquor network is only 3,500 but they plug into the larger union network of government employees who have vigorously taken up their case. The provincial government is halfway through its term and has cut and deregulated where possible, but it is now entering a phase where elections come into the picture again so it is time to backtrack and be nice and sweet. And so a number of proposed privatizations are now under review, the liquor branch plan being one of them.

The problem is that the absurd prices have been around for a long time and have deep roots so the urgency to bring them down is not all that pressing, people are used to it and there is no consumer campaign that addresses this piece of economic injustice. A strange majority of leftists and old style conservative puritans are able to continue to force a peculiar system of alcohol retailing on the citizens of British Columbia. For me it takes the fun out of buying a bottle of wine completely, although the liquor branch is doing everything to make the shopping experience more pleasant. I experience every visit to a liquor distribution store as a cruel humiliation by Stalinist forces that seek to control and belittle me and empty my wallet at the same time. This year I will turn forty, time to do a George W. Bush.