When nearly every province and territory in Canada signed a memorandum of understanding last summer, it felt like a turning point. Governments had committed in writing to opening up direct-to-consumer alcohol sales by the end of May 2026. Craft breweries, independent wineries, and small distillers across the country took note, and waited. That deadline is now here. Most governments have not moved.
As of this week, only Manitoba and New Brunswick allow customers to order alcohol directly from producers either within their own province or across provincial lines and have it delivered to their door. Manitoba had the framework long before the agreement was signed. New Brunswick followed suit in August 2025, becoming the first to act on the MOU. Since then, the list has not grown.
The Canadian Federation of Independent Business is not mincing words. In a statement released Monday, the CFIB said there is a troubling “lack of transparency and progress” from governments that made the commitment. Keyli Loeppky, the federation’s senior director of Alberta and interprovincial affairs, put it plainly: announcing a commitment is not the same as delivering on one.
The direct-to-consumer model would allow Canadians to order alcohol from producers anywhere in the country a bottle of Okanagan wine shipped to a home in Halifax, or a case of Nova Scotia cider delivered to a Calgary doorstep. Right now, fragmented carve-outs exist in places B.C. wineries, for example, can sell directly to Alberta consumers but a broad, functioning national system simply does not exist outside those two provinces.
The push to remove these barriers did not emerge in a vacuum. It gathered momentum alongside growing alarm about the economic fallout from the trade war with the United States and the tariffs that have followed. Proponents argue that strengthening internal trade is one of the most direct ways Canada can shore up its own economy. An Ipsos poll conducted for Global News found that six in ten Canadians support removing interprovincial trade barriers for alcohol, with a majority agreeing it would help soften the blow of the U.S. trade war and potentially spur growth.
Loeppky told Global News that the mechanics of change are not as complicated as the political inertia might suggest. The logistical path is clear. What has been missing, she argues, is the political motivation to actually walk it and with affordability weighing heavily on Canadian households right now, the cost of inaction is getting harder to ignore. Opening alcohol markets, the CFIB contends, would be one concrete way to reduce everyday costs for consumers.
Beyond simply meeting the May deadline, the CFIB is calling on governments to take further steps specifically, to expand the Canadian Mutual Recognition Agreement on Goods to formally cover alcohol sales. That move would help embed the changes in a durable framework, rather than leaving the matter subject to the shifting winds of political will in each province.
Small business owners in the drinks industry are watching the calendar and hoping that the announcements they’ve been handed will eventually translate into the policy changes they were promised. The month ends in days. The question is no longer whether the deadline will be met it’s how far short most governments will fall, and how long they expect the country’s craft producers to keep waiting.
