This is what my neighbors to the east have to contend with.

Convenience store operators have long wanted to take over beer and wine sales, partly to help offset declining sales of tobacco.

Restaurant, bar and hotel owners, would love to be able to sell booze for "off-premise" consumption.

"What we question is the total lack of transparency at The Beer Store. They are not beholden to anyone. There's no real overseer," says Syd Girling, strategic issues and research manager at the Ontario Restaurant Hotel & Motel Association.

But successive governments have been loath to privatize sales of booze, fearing it could lead to more crime, drunkenness, underage drinking and other public ills.

I hear libertarians speak of Canada as being "more free" than the US. Some things may be, but others are not. I spend enough time over there to know that, essentially, that notion is incorrect. Here's why.