Liquor sales continue to decline in Canada

0:00Canadians have had a love affair with beer, ever since Jesuit brother Ambrose in 1646 brewed the very first frothy concoction. It all happened because his fellow brothers were complaining about the fact that they couldn't get a good bottle of wine anywhere. There was a brief spell, of course in Canada, where prohibition turned off the taps. It was also in here in Alberta from 1916 to 1923, but hey, you know what, we still love our beer. There's no risk of that happening right now, no prohibition, but it doesn't mean that there isn't something resembling a temperance movement in 2026. We get some new numbers from Statistics Canada, and it suggests that there are a growing number of T-totalers. So to crack open the top on this trend, we're joined by Professor of History at Carlton University with a specialty in the history of alcohol. Rod Phillips on the line with us today. A big thank you for joining us. My pleasure. Yes, so for the folks who haven't seen the numbers on this, it's four years in a row that till we've seen the Canadian per capita consumption for booze fall.

1:03It's had a 20 year low of 6.8 liters per person. It's a drop of 1.5 liters going all the way back to the start of the pandemic. So to borrow a famous alcoholic catchphrase, Rod, I got a question for you. What's up? Well, it's a good question. Well, we don't know what's up. We know what's down and that's alcohol consumption. What's up is cannabis consumption, of course, but that may have something to do with it. But generally, yeah, we're seeing not only in Canada, we're seeing this in many parts of the world. Like right through Europe, North America, we're seeing that alcohol consumption is going down and not just beer, but wine and spirits as well. Yeah, and then you do mention that it could very well have to do with the fact that younger Canadians have found an alternative way to maybe alter their mind a little bit, right? Because certainly the one thing with cannabis is that as we learn more about alcohol, there are cancer concerns. You worry about liver disease, you worry about things like hangovers. Those all seem to be part of the equation here, don't they?

2:06Oh, I think so. We're still some uncertainty about the longer term effects of cannabis consumption, but we do know that alcohol consumption is generally not good for you. In fact, I can't think of any positives in terms of health, strictly in terms of health for drinking alcohol. And I think young people are just much more receptive to these kinds of warnings than older people. I mean, people like me, you know, I've been drinking drinking, you know, for decades, it's very hard to stop drinking or to even to cut back significantly with, but you know, if you've got a relatively short alcohol career or you haven't started, then it's easier to not start or to reduce. Yeah, well, certainly I can vouch for the fact that it's difficult to teach a new, a brew dog new tricks. One of the other things too, I guess that we shouldn't be surprised, but part of this conversation is it's expensive to have a vice and alcohol for a lot of folks is no different. Yeah, I think that's right. I mean, alcohol is not cheap. I mean, prices are going up. I mean, everything is everything is going up. And again, you know, I think we can see that younger people may be affected by this more than people who are better established.

3:18You know, many young people, you know, have precarious employment or, I mean, unemployment is high amongst young people as well. And, you know, when you've got a factor in rent and food and transportation and everything like that. And you can see that, you know, alcohol is going to take a pretty, pretty low place in the new priorities. Yeah, well, one of the other things that I was reading about that I hadn't even really kind of clicked in, but it makes sense when, when you think about it, when we've talked obviously a lot in this country in recent years about immigration folks coming in and a lot of folks moving to Canada are coming with them with a different perspective on alcohol. And that might be influencing the numbers. Yeah, I think it's fairly marginal, but certainly, I mean, we have quite a big immigration from areas or regions where alcohol consumption is quite low in case of India, for example, in China. You know, alcohol consumption is very low in those countries. And if the immigrants coming from those countries bring those low alcohol consumption practices or behavior with them, then that's obviously going to have an effect on the overall per capita consumption of alcohol in Canada.

4:23I think part of the reason why this non-alcoholic trend seems to be gripping younger people in more, they're taking to it a little bit better than I would have thought, which is that they're still able to enjoy that the club atmosphere or the brave atmosphere. They're just doing it without booze basically. Yeah, I think we're seeing that more and more. We're seeing daytime parties. We're seeing early morning dance parties. You can see this spreading through Europe. So people are getting together at six o'clock in the morning, dancing for an hour or two, and then going to work. But you know, they're dancing without alcohol. And at the other end of the day, we're seeing that late night, late night activities are beginning to shrink. People are just going to going out for dinner, for example, at six o'clock, rather than going at seven o'clock or eight o'clock. So the later it gets at night, the more people tend to drink. And so anything that moves activities earlier in the evening is going to have an effect on the consumption of alcohol and reduce it too.

5:28Well, as the father of three year old toddler, I can confirm there is something to be said for seven or eight a.m. dance party. When it comes to this trend, obviously, this has been something that's happened over the course of the last five years were honed in on. But big picture macro picture. Well, what do you think we're heading with this? Does this is a trend to the point where this is going to continue with the arrows downward? Is it a blip in time? What's your sense in terms of Canadian's relationship with alcohol in the future? My sense is that this is beginning in the longer term trend. Here you have a younger generation. This is a gen Z gen Z. That's moving away from alcohol and we have to see what happens to the generation that comes after them. So if they take the same view, they embrace the same attitudes. They're happy to socialize without alcohol. They're alive to the health dangers of alcohol. Then that next generation is going to do it. And at the same time, people like me, baby boomers, with long careers of drinking, we're going to die.

6:31And we're going to take those high drinking behaviors with us. So at both ends, you can see that there could be a longer term trend towards lower alcohol consumption. Interesting. Yeah, like I said, a temperance movement of sort without government regulation getting involved. Hey, Rob, this is a fascinating trend. And it'd be interesting to see if it does continue going forward to appreciate each other, hopping on to talk to us about it today. It's my pleasure. Here you go. Stumbling over words. My words. Maybe I've had a drink or two. No, I'm just kidding. That is a Rod Phillips professor of history at Carlton University in Ottawa, especially on alcohol. Layla, real quick. I'm going to pull you in on his hair because you're the resident young person. You're the resident T totaler. Would you go to a 6 a.m. dance party? I would. I think I would. Yeah. I see Derek wants to get in on this as well. Would you go to a 6 a.m. dance party? I would DJ a 6 a.m. dance party. Absolutely.

7:31There you go. Well, hey, you know what? Maybe we'll get Stacey Brotzel to host one of those on this morning on Chad. That'd be something.