[jacquesm]

Indeed, but Canada has a long history of the government supporting business interests against the interests of its own population. I have a list somewhere that I prepared for an article that I intend to write about this, it's probably never going to happen because I can't get mad enough about it any more (since I've left Canada that sort of thing has gone on the back burner).

[warrenwilkinson]

I would love to see that list actually. I live in Canada and often debate politics.

If its no trouble, could you please contact me at [e-mail]?

[jacquesm]

Sure, I'll dig it up and I'll mail it to you, it's on my todo list now.

It was made because I was planning on writing a book on immigrating to Canada from the perspective of someone that has gone through the whole process, and this was to become one article (a blog post) and / or a chapter in there.

The whole thing had as working title 'movingtoca'.

Canada is a fantastic country but some things there are just - how to say this without insulting Canadians - peculiar.

The system works for the most part but if you don't dig in to Canada's history and do your best to understand the way the various interests interlock there is no way you're going to understand how things got to be the way they are.

To an outsider they'd make no sense at all and to people living there that do not have the historical perspective they probably also do not.

Some of these things date back all the way to the prohibition days of Capone!

How do you explain to an American that the same bottle of wine costs 50% more in rural Canada than in New York City :) ?

[jarek]

> How do you explain to an American that the same bottle of wine costs 50% more in rural Canada than in New York City :) ?

Shipping cost? If anything, I'd have thought the LCBO, keeping prices uniform across the province, helps rural areas at the expense of higher density areas (though perhaps not strict downtowns where store lease cost might be significant).

[wmoxam]

Alcohol is heavily taxed and the LCBO also enforces a price floor to discourage heavy drinking.

http://www.lcbotrade.com/selling_pricing.htm