Border-crossing beer question heads to Supreme Court

OTTAWA — The Supreme Court of Canada will take a look at what the fathers of Confederation really meant by a constitutional clause about free trade among provinces in a case that started over some cases of beer and three bottles of liquor.

The court agreed Thursday to hear a Crown appeal of a New Brunswick ruling overturning a ban on bringing alcohol across provincial boundaries.

The case now stands a chance of altering more than a century’s worth of provincial supply-management systems, Crown monopolies on alcohol and other non-tariff barriers erected within the federation, says defence lawyer Arnold Schwisberg.

“I’ve said to the politicians … be prepared to have some kind of transitional plan in place should limitations on the cross-border movement of alcohol and supply-management systems change,” he said.

The case sprang to prominence last year when a provincial court judge threw out all charges against retiree Gerard Comeau after he was ticketed for importing 14 cases of beer and three bottles of liquor from a Quebec border town.

In an 88-page decision, Judge Ronald LeBlanc said the original framers of the Constitution never intended that laws should blatantly block the free flow of goods within their new country.

The New Brunswick Liquor Control Act prohibits having more than 12 pints of beer not purchased through a liquor store in the province, a prohibition the judge called unconstitutional. The New Brunswick Court of Appeal declined to hear the Crown’s appeal. Comeau was fined $292.50 in 2012. An analysis 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.