Why should the government take over the sale of alcohol? Isn’t enough for the state to (badly) manage education, health, road infrastructure, justice, social services and others?<\/p>\n
And then, why just selling alcohol? Why not food? Clothing? Sports articles? Pharmacy? The list goes on and on.<\/p>\n
The very existence of the SAQ, the current state monopoly, no longer has any consistency or relevance: it is purely an anachronism.<\/p>\n
It is still there simply because dismantling it would cause so much troubles, hence the inertia of successive governments that have other more urgent priorities to pursue.<\/p>\n
The resistance would likely come from the main stakeholders that are benefitting from the current system:<\/p>\n
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- SAQ’s management and senior management;<\/li>\n
- SAQ’s unionized staff which enjoys much better pay and working conditions than industry standards;<\/li>\n
- Wine agencies that do good business with the SAQ;<\/li>\n
- SAQ partners such as \u00c9duc’alcool;<\/li>\n
- SAQ’s suppliers (services, real estate, etc.).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Convenience stores, on the other hand, have a tiny portion of the market of the kind that requires hard work for low profits.<\/p>\n
Indeed, apart from a few exceptions, they can only sell products bottled here and whose name is specifically created and exist only within their network.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/depquebec.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/tableauventessaq-epicerie-1.jpg\")
<\/a>Revenues from wine sales in convenience stores and grocery stores grew by 4.7% in the last five years, while wine sales in the rest of the network (SAQ stores, restaurants, agencies and others) increased by 8.7%, almost double (source: SAQ<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n In other words, the “depanneur” wine, as it is called, is this low-priced, artificially created product designed to not compete with the SAQ, which sells real labels, names and regions at any prices it wants.<\/p>\n
In addition, this low-level wine category requires much more handling efforts and costs for much less profits.<\/p>\n