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If Canadians ever needed proof that narrow politicking interferes with sensible consumer choice, they need look no further than the byzantine “reforms” on the sale of beer, wine and spirits proposed by Ontario, and one restrictive “reform” recently enacted in British Columbia.

Some background: In Ontario, the provincial government-owned Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO) ran 639 government stores as of 2014. And the province has long protected a near-monopoly on beer sales with an exclusive arrangement with The Beer Store, which has 448 outlets.

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By volume, Ontario’s LCBO stores sell 85 per cent of all wine in the province with the rest mainly sold by wineries and private wine stores.

The Beer Store accounts for 70.4 per cent of all beer sales while the LCBO’s share is 22.5 per cent. Between them, by volume, the private and government chains account for 93 per cent of all beer sales (according to 2012 figures, the latest available).