The federal government pitched a sizeable increase to the alcohol excise tax earlier this year — only to walk back that commitment in response to backlash from some MPs, lobby groups and cost-conscious Canadian drinkers.
Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland’s budget kept the annual tax increase much lower than inflation — it’ll grow by just 2 per cent this year — after a well-organized letter-writing campaign convinced the government that the political repercussions of such a hike weren’t worth the relatively modest revenue bump.
There was similar blowback when the Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction (CCSA) recently issued new drinking guidelines that claimed no amount of alcohol is safe.
