Booze, Cigarettes, and Constitutional Dust-Ups: Canada's Quest for Interprovincial Free Trade

by Ryan Manucha

Overview

Gerard Comeau, a retiree living in rural New Brunswick, never thought his booze run would turn him into a Canadian hero. In 2012, after Comeau had driven to Quebec to purchase cheaper beer and crossed back into his home province, police officers participating in a low-stakes sting operation tailed and detained him, confiscated his haul, and levied a fine of less than $300. Countries routinely engage in trade wars and erect barriers to protect domestic industries from foreign competition. Comeau, however, was detained by the full force of the law for engaging in commerce with a Canadian business on the other side of a domestic border. With Comeau’s story as its starting point, Booze, Cigarettes, and Constitutional Dust-Ups tells the fascinating tale of Canadian interprovincial trade. Ryan Manucha examines the historical, political, and legal forces that gave rise to the regulation of interprovincial commerce in Canada, the trade-offs that come with liberalized domestic free trade, and Canada’s enduring pursuit of economic union. The pandemic laid bare the vulnerability of global supply chains, the fickleness of foreign trading partners, and the surprising slipperiness of domestic trade. In a global climate of increasingly isolationist geopolitics, the history and possibility of Canada’s economic union, quirks and all, deserve careful attention.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780228014423
Publisher:	McGill-Queens University Press
Publication date:	10/15/2022
Series:	McGill-Queen's/Brian Mulroney Institute of Government Studies in Leadership, Public Policy, and Governance , #10
Pages:	312
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Ryan Manucha is a widely published author on interprovincial trade. He lives in Toronto.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ix

1 Get Your Hands off My Beer 3

2 The House the Beavers Built 10

3 Booze, Cigarettes, and Constitutional Dust-Ups 21

4 A Turkey Farmer Takes on the Wheat Board 34

5 A Potash Cartel and Its Canadian Kingpin 49

6 Gravity and the Internal Trade Barrier 56

7 American Apples, Korean Beef, and Canadian Beer 63

8 Think Tanks, Accords, and a Clash of Ideology 89

9 The Birth of a Trade Deal 102

10 Agreeing on How to Disagree 119

11 Margarine Meltdown 137

12 Deals within Deals 161

13 Duvets, Organic Lettuce, and Building Codes: The New Age of Internal Trade 182

14 Interprovincial Trade and Reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples Living in Canada 207

15 The Future of Domestic Free Trade 217

Notes 225

Index 293

Editorial Reviews

Canada’s economy has been hampered by interprovincial trade barriers for decades, … [Booze, Cigarettes, and Constitutional Dust-Ups] sees reasons for hope the provinces can find more common ground.” Director Journal


“In Booze, Cigarettes, and Constitutional Dust-Ups, Ryan Manucha brilliantly and accessibly writes about the difficult and often bizarre evolution of interprovincial trade in Canada. For decades, politicians and courts have grappled with this issue, often with unsatisfactory results. This important new book gives readers the history of something that is truly (and unfortunately) Canadian — why it is sometimes easier to import something from another country than it is to “import” something from another province.” 2023 Balsillie Prize for Public Policy Jury (Samantha Nutt, Taki Sarantakis, and Scott Young)


“With Booze, Cigarettes, and Constitutional Dust-ups, Ryan Manucha helps explain the history of the internal trade barriers that have led to … head-scratching disparities. Manucha finds a would-be ‘trade-barrier dragon-slayer’ in Gerard Comeau, who in 2013 Was fined for bringing 49 bottles of beer and three bottles of liquor into New Brunswick from Quebec.” Literary Review of Canada


“With populist movements and the COVID-19 pandemic challenging globalization and international free trade, the fate of domestic trade within Canada deserves focused attention. Animated and engaging, Manucha’s history of Canadian interprovincial trade is a timely addition to the literature, as well as a welcome addition to my bookshelf.” Rainer Knopff, University of Calgary and co-author of The Court and the Constitution: Leading Cases

From the Publisher