Prohibition in Canada refers to a movement and a succession of actions at the local, county and provincial levels for the prohibition of alcohol, beginning in the late nineteenth century and continuing well into the twentieth century. The temperance movement reached its height in Canada in the 1920s, when outside imports were cut off by provincial referendums. As legislation prohibiting consumption of alcohol was repealed, it was typically replaced with regulation restricting the sale of alcohol to minors and imposing excise taxes on alcoholic products.
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Origins
Prohibition was mostly spurred on by the efforts of people of the Temperance movement to close all drinking establishments, which they viewed as the source of societal ills and misery. The main temperance organizations at the time were the Dominion Alliance for the Total Suppression of the Liquor Traffic and the Women's Christian Temperance Union, which rose to prominence in the 1870s in Canada and the United States.
Some legislative steps toward prohibition were taken in the nineteenth century. The passage of the Dunkin Act in Upper Canada in 1864 allowed any county to forbid the sale of liquor by majority vote.
A few years after Confederation, the Canada Temperance Act was enacted by the Parliament of Canada in 1878, which provided an option for municipalities to opt-in by plebiscite to a prohibitionary scheme. It was often known as the Scott Act for its sponsor Sir Richard William Scott.
Later, an official, but non-binding, federal referendum on prohibition was held in 1898, receiving 51.3 percent for and 48.7 percent against prohibition on a voter turnout of 44 percent. Prohibition had a majority in all provinces except Quebec, where a strong 81.1 percent voted against it. Despite this national electoral majority, Prime Minister Wilfrid Laurier's government chose not to introduce a federal bill on prohibition, mindful of the strong antipathy in Quebec. As a result, Canadian prohibition was instead enacted through laws passed by the provinces during the first twenty years of the 20th century.
Prince Edward Island was the first to bring in prohibition in 1900. Alberta and Ontario passed prohibition laws in 1916. Quebec implemented prohibition in 1919 but it was quickly repealed after intense public pressure.
Alcohol production in Ontario
Despite having laws until 1927 against the consumption of alcohol in Ontario, the government allowed numerous exceptions. Wineries were exempted from closure, and various breweries and distilleries remained open for the export market.[1] The fact that the "export" might be by small boat from Windsor across the river to Detroit only helped the province's economy (see Canadian Rum Running).
Repeal
The provinces repealed their prohibition laws, mostly during the 1920s. After the 1924 Ontario prohibition referendum narrowly defeated the repeal of the Ontario Temperance Act the Ontario government of Howard Ferguson permitted the sale of low alcohol beer and, following its re-election on the platform of repealing the OTA, ended prohibition in 1927 and created the Liquor Control Board of Ontario, permitting the sale of liquor in the province though under heavy regulation.
Alberta repealed in 1924, along with Saskatchewan, upon realizing that the laws were unenforceable. Prince Edward Island was last to repeal in 1948.
Nevertheless, some communities, such as the city of Owen Sound, Ontario, continued to outlaw liquor well into the 1970s and parts of west Toronto did not permit liquor sales until 2000 due largely to the efforts of Reverend William Horace Temple.
Realizing that they could not stop people from drinking entirely, temperance advocates successfully pressured all provincial and territorial governments to curtail the sale of liquor through the tight control of liquor control boards.
See also
References
- Hallowell, Gerald (1988). "Prohibition in Canada". The Canadian Encyclopedia. Hurtig Publishers. ISBN 0-88830-328-9. http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/index.cfm?PgNm=TCE&ArticleId=A0006515.
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