History
The Société des alcools du Québec was created in 1921 under the name Quebec Liquor Commission (Commission des liqueurs du Québec). In 1961, it became the Régie des alcools du Québec (Quebec Liquor Control) and, in 1971, the Société des alcools du Québec.
In 1921, an Alcoholic Beverages Act was passed and the Quebec Liquor Commission was established to conduct the trade of beer, wine and cider, and eventually spirits too. This provincial-owned corporation would then on exercise a legal monopoly on all distribution of alcohol in Quebec.[10] In its first year, the commission establishes a quality control laboratory, opens 64 stores selling 383 products, employs 415 people and grosses $15 million in sales.[11]
In Canada the struggle for the total ban of alcohol began in the 1898 national referendum, asking people if they wished total prohibition which included importation, manufacturing and sale of all types of alcohol beverages. Although the national results were extremely close with Yes leading by 2%, regional disparities were wide. In Quebec, 81% of voters ended up rejecting the prohibition proposal in contrast to the rest of Canada. In fear of splitting the country on a sharp divide between Catholic French and Protestant English Canada, then Prime Minister Wilfrid Laurier decided not to act upon the vote results. By 1917, every province except Quebec implemented a complete ban on alcohol. A year later, a law was proposed in Quebec calling for complete prohibition in 1919. The law was never enacted due to opposition from the public and the Catholic Church. Quebec did prohibit spirits, such as whisky and scotch, which came to be called partial prohibition. The government invoked illegal distillation, but mounting pressure forced it to backtrack. The Alcoholic Beverages Act abolished partial prohibition in 1921. This act created the Quebec Liquor Commission as a monopoly in distribution and retail of alcohol (SAQ, 2009). Officially, the government stated control of alcohol abuse as the official reason to create this new agency. Over the years, the SAQ increased its profits, which were transferred to the government. The Régie des alcools du Québec (RAQ) was created in 1961 in order to promote business growth, which opened its first self-service branch soon afterward. With the opening of other branches, the government began to focus on different aspects of alcohol sales in Quebec. “The government commissions a new study into the alcoholic beverage trade, creating the Thinel Commission for the purpose”. Based on the recommendations of the Thinel Commission in 1971, the Société des Alcools du Québec was founded in order to be in charge of sales. The SAQ took over the RAQ branches and employees and became strictly commercial. The SAQ continued to produce economic growth for the Quebec government as time went on. Its strength in commercialization prompted several privatization projects that were submitted to the government. Specifically in 1983, when it was announced that the SAQ retail network would be privatized, it was strongly opposed by unions. Petkantchin explains that this privatization project suffered many weaknesses: it involved privatizing “certain points of sale in Montreal” but with no competition allowed from the remaining SAQ stores. Petkantchin argues that “benefits to consumers of this partial privatization, had it gone ahead, would have been very limited.” Consumers would have remained “captive, with no real alternative”. Baffling the mind, the remaining SAQ branches would also have been sheltered from competition from the privatized stores, which would have been required to buy their merchandise from the SAQ at fixed prices.
