Here's a staggering statistic: in Ontario, about half of all booze sold at the liquor outlets is made within the province. In Quebec, that figure sits at a mere one percent.
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| Winemaker Anthony Carone has slammed Quebec's approach |
The Quebec liquor monopoly doesn't much care where the booze its sells is from because it has been making massive profits of about 74 percent on resale of anything it gets.
In some cases, it buys a bottle of wine for $3 and sells it for $15.
One consumer has even tried to launch a class action suit against the monopoly for abusive pricing practices and hopefully it will eventually result in the privatization of liquor sales in the Kweeb.
The last such attempt in 2008 was shot down by a judge who said pricing was a political issue.
Profits at the SAQ have been shooting through the roof, as Quebecers turn from beer to wine, so their gain is your corner store's loss, more proof that government does little to help the little entrepreneur.
Sales at the SAQ have been rising about 10 percent each year, and now sit at about $2.8 billion and I believe the new earnings to be revealed within a few weeks will reflect similar growth.
Quebec has recently tried to reward its rural base by going on a food independence publicity campaign but has totally ignored the almost non-existent alcohol-producing sector in their blitz, a sector that has been cultivated in other provincial governments.
Sherbrooke MNA Stephane Billet has even brought a motion to the National Assembly to force the SAQ to promote more Quebec wines as part of its official mandate but the PQ government says it's not ready to sign on to make it law.
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| Other provinces are even greedier when it comes to booze profits |
Now, we're not expecting Quebec to rival the more temperate B.C. and Southern Ontario for wine sales but the province could surely ramp up its production to something more than the piddling market share it currently holds.
Local winemaker Anthony Carone has offered a series of scathing, and rather entertaining, analyses of the problems caused for and by the 150-or-so licensed Quebec winemakers in their frustrating quest to grab a larger market share. From one such tirade: "The current strategy seems to be that we bicker and we are so pleased with three-page spreads in industry publications. We are vain, we are narcissistic, we are hopelessly poor."