Control of the Liquor Traffic in Canada

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HISTORICAL SKETCH T HERE are three well-marked stages in the development of Canadian efforts to control the sale of intoxicating liquors. Prior to 1864 there was no legislative restriction except for the collection of revenue. The first stage, from 1864 to 1916-19, consisted in the steady extension of local prohibition of retail sale in municipalities and counties. The latter part of this period, from 1890, was also marked by unsuccessful agitation for prohibition on a provincial scale. The second stage, beginning in 1916, saw a trial of complete provincial prohibition in every province except Quebec, where spirits only were prohibited. The third stage, commencing in 1921, consists in the experiment in government control and sale under commissions or control boards. Between 1921 and 1930, eight of the nine provinces adopted this system, Prince Edward Island remaining persistently true to her adoption of virtual prohibition through the nearly thirty years ago. The Dunkin Act, passed in the United Province of Canada (now Ontario and Quebec) in 1864, enabled any county or municipality, by a majority vote, to prohibit the retail sale of liquor within its borders. In 1878 the Dominion Government replaced this statute with a general law, the Canada Temperance Act (popularly known as the Scott Act), which provided for a vote in any city or county on petition of 25 per cent of the electors, and for an interval of at least three years between votes in any county. Under this statute, local option spread steadily over the Maritime Provinces, Prince Edward Island being completely dry and Nova Scotia nearly so, early in the present century. In the other provinces, especially Ontario and Quebec, where the provincial-rights struggle was sharper, the Scott Act was never very popular, and local option developed under Provincial Statutes. In the twenty years prior to 1914, the adoption of local option by the rural sections and the smaller municipalities proceeded so rapidly that in the rural parts of Ontario and Quebec, and to a lesser extent in the West, the licensed hotels (Canada never had a saloon system) practically disappeared, thus confining the retail sale of liquor largely to the cities and the bigger towns. Concurrently, a steady pressure was maintained by the temperance forces to secure provincial prohibition. Between 1892 and 1902, plebiscites were taken as in Table I.1 In addition, the Legislature of New Brunswick, in 1893, adopted a resolution favoring prohibition. A nationwide plebiscite on Dominion Prohibition in 1898 showed 278,380 for and 264,693 against, Quebec being the strongest supporter of the anti-prohibition side. Curiously enough, although the majority ranged from 63 per cent to 78 per cent, apart from the adverse vote in Manitoba in 1902, the vote was in no case considered decisive enough to warrant the enactment of a prohibitory law. In part at least, the explanation lies in the reluctance of provincial governments to face the difficulties of enforcement when the Dominion alone could control the