Beer battle bubbles toward Supreme Court

TORONTO (CP) — A court ruling that threw out a New Brunswick man’s $292.50 fine for buying cheaper beer in another province and taking it home has upended decades of legal thinking and strikes at the heart of Canadian federalism, the provincial government argues in a request to have the country’s highest court weigh in on the case.

The ruling and a refusal by the province’s Appeal Court to review the decision, the request states, could hamper government control over interprovincial trade and create nationwide confusion around the extent of provincial authority.

“The combined effect of these two decisions calls into question several judgments of this court beginning in 1921 as well as 150 years of constitutional compromise,” New Brunswick said in its argument to the Supreme Court. “This is a decision of polarizing national interest.”

In October 2012, RCMP fined Gerard Comeau, of Tracadie-Sheila, N.B., for violating a New Brunswick liquor law as he returned from a regular beer run into Quebec with 14 cases of beer and three bottles of liquor. The law — related to federal antismuggling efforts implemented at the height of Prohibition — barred importing more than one bottle of wine or 12 pints of beer — about 19 regular bottles — from any other province.

Comeau, a retiree, argued at trial that the law violated part of the Constitution he said mandates free trade within Canada. Judge Ronald LeBlanc agreed with him last April. The province appealed but the New Brunswick Court of Appeal refused to hear the case.

The province is now urging the Supreme Court to decide the case. Comeau is also urging the Supreme Court to hear the case — for reasons different from the province.

His lawyers argue federal and provincial governments have repeatedly violated Section 121 of the Constitution since the country’s founding in 1867 by erecting protectionist barriers — such as New Brunswick did with its alcohol import restrictions, although beer is just one part of a much bigger picture.

An analysis last year by Malcolm Lavoie of the University of Alberta’s law faculty hinted at just how far-reaching LeBlanc’s decision could be.

“The approach . . . adopted by the trial judge threatens to shift the structure of Canadian federalism, as well as the structure of economic regulation in Canada,” he wrote.