Canadians like to drink, eh?

Cheers to Canada

By the time you read this, Canada Day will be over and at least a few people will be up in arms about various affronts to their civil liberties, thanks to the inevitable police crackdown on alcohol during the holiday. No booze on the bus? Fine with me; I pretty much quit drinking around the time Crocodile Dundee was popular and, surprisingly, have had little patience for public drunks since then. (“Oh please, can’t you just get stoned like everyone else? It’s so much calmer.”) But the idea that the authorities would have a problem with the public intake of alcohol on our own national holiday is all rather ironic, when chased with a few facts about Canada’s high-spirited relationship with booze.

Contrary to popular belief, Canadian history is far from dry. From John A. MacDonald’s notorious rum-barrel diplomacy that first tapped the keg of nationalism to our sad and inglorious record of introducing alcohol to the aboriginal peoples, I’m afraid it’s a little late to be worrying about how tipsy Canadians get on Canada Day. Here’s a few shots of hair of the husky to get you back on your feet after the holiday.

• Alcohol sales top $16 billion annually in Canada, with more than $4 billion of that going into government coffers. And despite a 2006 federal government study that put alcohol second only to tobacco in causing “the greatest harms in terms of health, legal, social and economic costs and problems” (more than $14 billion a year), Health Canada’s annual contribution towards treatment and rehabilitation programs hovers around the $14 million mark. Oh, and beer remains our drink of choice, outselling all other types of booze in 2008.

• File under “founding fathers”: Canada’s first commercial brewery dates back to Quebec City, circa 1668. John Molson opened his first brewery in Montreal in 1786, followed shortly thereafter by the likes of Alexander Keith (1829), Thomas Carling (1830) and John Labatt (1847).

• Locally, Captain George Vancouver’s crew made a beer from pine needles when they first visited these fair shores back in 1792 and Victoria was the sight of B.C.’s first commercial brewery in 1858—the same year the colony of British Columbia was established (a coincidence, I’m sure). By 1863, we had six local breweries, with the famed Phoenix brewery opening in 1868 (later to be revived by boffo brewmeister Matt Phillips), and it was the B.C. government that first opened the taps for Canadian craft ales when they legalized microbreweries in 1982, in response to price-fixing by national breweries. (For a more complete and completely fascinating history of local beer, see “Awash in Suds” on Ross Crockford’s Unknown Victoria blog.)

• Speaking of beer, the 1983 Bob and Doug McKenzie move Strange Brew is loosely based on a little-known English play called, uh, Hamlet. (The key word there is “loosely.”)

• According to the WHO, Canada makes it into the 50 highest per capita alcohol-consuming countries. (“We’re number 47!”) Not surprisingly, Ireland, France and Germany all made the top 10.

• Gordon Campbell was the first premier in Canadian history to be busted for impaired driving. Unfortunately, it only seemed to help his career.

• Molson’s “I Am Canadian” campaign originally ran from 1994 to 1998, and was then revived in 2000 with the “Joe Canadian” commercials, which aired up until Molson merged with American beer giant Coors in 2005. (Quick chaser: after the “I Am Canadian” rants put Nova Scotia actor Jeff Douglas on the media map, he split for LA; alas, nobody really cared that he was Canadian and he ended up back in Toronto.)

• Since Canada didn’t participate in the “Noble Experiment” that was the Prohibition Era, American gangsters got rich by smuggling Canadian alcohol across the line and selling it illegally. Here’s to learning from the past! M