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Welcome to the 21st century

Sometimes you have to wonder what governments are thinking when they come up with liquor legislation.

Sometimes you have to wonder what governments are thinking when they come up with liquor legislation.

Do they want us to shift towards a pseudo-prohibition era, in which it’s incredibly difficult to purchase a drink, but alcohol is still legal? Do they want to limit the options that we have available to us?

Sure, laws are changing gradually to create more freedom and opportunity, but you wonder if the people who write our liquor laws want a return to the days when men and women had to go to separate bars.

The most recent goofy and archaic law to be scrapped in Saskatchewan is the one that calls for limits on the amount of alcohol that can be transported across provincial boundaries for personal use. Yes, there was still a law in place.

The law was ridiculous. And it was unenforceable. We didn’t have patrols set up at the Saskatchewan-Manitoba border, looking for people who were bringing a couple of cases of beer across the provincial boundary.

If the RCMP pulled somebody over for speeding near Gainsborough, they weren’t going to search the vehicle to see if there was a couple of cases of beer in the trunk. The police are busy enough as it is; they have real crimes to worry about.

And the courts have more pressing issues to deal with than whether someone was caught importing beer across provincial lines.

You have to wonder if anyone was actually charged with this offence in this century.

If you look at the laws of any province or jurisdiction, you’ll likely find a few laughers. Crimes that aren’t actually crimes, and should be stricken from the laws. Maybe the government doesn’t want them to come to light because they know it would be embarrassing.

We’d also hope that we’re the only province with this law that should be a punch line, but we’re not. Other provinces still have this law, and it’s absurd.

In a capitalist society where drinking in moderation is encouraged, you have to wonder why this law was still in place.

Maybe there are concerns that by repealing this law, you’re going to encourage more people to drive while impaired. That’s not the case. It’s tragic that Saskatchewan has the highest impaired driving rates in the country. And we should always be looking at ways to deter and punish impaired driving, rather than encourage it.

But it’s unlikely that many impaired driving collisions and charges were caused by people who were smuggling beer across provincial lines.

And we aren’t seeing a change in the laws for bringing alcohol in from the U.S. So if you were hoping to bring in greater quantities of cheap, watery beer from a U.S. convenience store, you’ll be disappointed.

Saskatchewan has some great breweries, wineries and distilleries. Anyone who has been to Savour the Southeast can attest to that. You can enjoy a great product made in Saskatchewan, by Saskatchewan people and using Saskatchewan ingredients, and give the economy a boost, too.

But there are some great products being created elsewhere in the country, too, and if you want to bring something home with you that was made in southwest Manitoba, well, why shouldn’t you?

At the same time, if someone from Calgary wants to bring a great Saskatchewan beer home with them, why shouldn’t they?

We need firm laws when it comes to all aspects of alcohol, but they need to be enforceable and they have to be modern. They can’t leave you wondering if they were created for 1959 instead of 2019.