Good morning. I’m Dave McGinn, The Globe and Mail’s parenting and family life reporter filling in for Danielle Groen. Today marks a major change for Ontario’s liquor laws, and some health experts are warning there will be dire consequences. More on that below, but first:
Today’s headlines
- Jagmeet Singh ended a Liberal-NDP deal that helped support Justin Trudeau’s minority government. The NDP will now decide on a case-by-case basis whether to support the Liberals on confidence matters.
- At least five provinces have ordered the rest of last season’s COVID-19 shots destroyed to make way for updated vaccines. No COVID shots will be available in Ontario, Alberta and Saskatchewan in September or longer.
- In a third consecutive cut, the Bank of Canada lowered its key interest rate to 4.25 per cent, reiterating economic growth needs to pick up.
- The suspect in a fatal Vancouver knife attack has mental-health problems and has had more than 60 interactions with police across the region.
Kenny Shim, owner of Toronto convenience store Busy Bee Mart, talks about figuring out the best location to keep alcohol when new regulations permit its sale in corner stores.Galit Rodan/The Globe and Mail
Alcohol
Cheers to convenience?
As of today, convenience stores across Ontario will be allowed to sell beer, cider, wine and premixed alcoholic drinks from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m., seven days a week. So far, more than 4,000 convenience stores have been granted a licence to sell booze.
There has been plenty of hand-wringing about making alcohol more available than it already is in the province. But alcohol is already fairly widely available in much of the country.
Quebec allows convenience stores to sell alcoholic beverages. In New Brunswick you can get wine, beer and cider at grocery stores. In B.C., some grocery stores sell wine. Newfoundland and Labrador convenience stores can sell beer.
In Alberta, liquor has been sold at some 7-Eleven locations since 2021 – it is allowed to do so because the locations have dine-in areas, so can be treated like restaurants. But Ontario’s decision has now inspired Alberta to look into the possibility of expanding liquor sales to grocery stores and convenience stores.
Getting Ontario to this point has been no easy task for Premier Doug Ford, who first promised to do so during the 2018 election campaign.
For one, there was the controversial decision to pay the brewers who own the Beer Store chain up to $225-million to get out of a contract that would have expired in 16 months. Alcohol sales were also a central issue between the government and the union representing more than 9,000 employees at the provincially owned Liquor Control Board of Ontario that saw the workers strike for just over two weeks this summer. Now, the LCBO will be the exclusive wholesaler for alcoholic beverages sold at convenience stores, but spirits will still only be available for purchase at LCBO stores.
Being in a 7-Eleven seems like it’s going to be a lot different. The Japanese-owned company, which Quebec-based Couche-Tard is trying to buy, has sought full licences to not only sell alcoholic beverages but also serve them inside the more than 50 locations it operates in Ontario.
When it comes to costs, customers may find different price tags on the same item at different convenience stores. Under the new rules, convenience stores and grocery stores will be allowed to set their own prices, although not below legislated minimums.
“It’s a happy event for us,” Kenny Shim, president of the Ontario Convenience Store Association, recently told The Globe and Mail’s Jeff Gray.
But not everyone is keen for the changes.
More than 6,000 people die each year in Ontario from causes that are attributed to alcohol, and selling booze in convenience stores will increase that number, according Toronto’s Centre for Addiction and Mental Health. “The main driver of alcohol-related harm is convenience. Decades of research show that increased ease of access leads to more consumption and, in turn, more harm,” the centre said in a statement released earlier this year.
It will be worth watching how the changes play out in drinking culture, and whether they could affect the drinking habits of millennials and Gen Z, if at all, since both demographics drink less than both Gen X and baby boomers.
And for anyone worried about the health consequences of the new reality, Globe and Mail health columnist André Picard recently argued that putting booze into convenience stores shouldn’t be a great public health concern.
Surely there will be some worries about the new way of doing things, and getting here certainly hasn’t been free of contentiousness.
The Shot
“The community that we live in and beyond is coming together to support our teachers in a time of great unknown”
Jessie Smeall stands among the dozens of boxes of school supplies in her garage in Hinton, Alta., on Sept. 2, 2024.Karen Palashniuk/The Globe and Mail
Schools in Jasper, Alta., are set to open in two weeks. This is a back-to-school like no other after wildfires destroyed so much of the Rocky Mountain town earlier this summer. Jessie Smeall, a music teacher and the Alberta Teachers’ Association local president for the area, is determined to make the return to school as good as it can be.
After talking to school administrators and teachers, the local union president created an online wish list on Amazon for school supplies to support everyone who will be returning to class in Jasper. Smeall’s garage is filling up with boxes of pens and markers, and calculators as the days count down.
The Wrap
What else we’re following
At home: Canada’s Information Commissioner has chastised National Defence for an “unacceptable” response to a records request. The Globe had requested records related to a statement about the origin of a strike on a Gaza Strip hospital on Oct. 17.
Abroad: Boko Haram militants on motorcycles attacked a Nigerian village, killing more than 100, residents say, in the latest violence in Africa’s longest struggle with militancy.
TIFF: The Toronto International Film Festival returns for its 49th annual fest starting today until Sept. 15.
Congrats! The Giller Prize has released the long list of authors in the running for this year’s $100,000 award, which has dropped Scotiabank from its name (although the big bank remains the lead sponsor of the award).
Congrats? A painting has fetched US$1.4-million at a Maine auction, a shockingly high price considering it was only estimated to sell for US$10,000 to US$15,000 – but a shockingly low price if you believe the painter was Rembrandt van Rijn.
Editor’s note: The original version of this newsletter incorrectly stated that Newfoundland and Labrador allows convenience stores to sell alcoholic beverages. They are allowed to sell beer. This version has been updated.