Ottawa removes the last federal barrier to interprovincial alcohol

For 91 years, the federal Importation of Intoxicating Liquors Act had required any alcohol shipped into a province to pass through that province's own liquor control board first — the legal root of Canada's internal alcohol trade barriers. Bill C-97, the 2019 federal budget implementation act, repeals that requirement, clearing the last federal-level obstacle to shipping alcohol between provinces.

This didn't legalize direct-to-consumer sales on its own. Provinces and territories kept full authority to set — or keep — their own rules on importing alcohol from elsewhere in Canada, and most didn't open their markets for another five years. Every event on this timeline that follows happens at the provincial level, building on the room this one federal change cleared.