Alcohol Pricing and Public Health in Canada: Issues and Opportunities

Abstract

While the price of alcoholic beverages has been identified as a major determinant of the extent of alcohol-related problems, alcohol taxes have rarely been used in any systematic way to achieve public health and safety objectives. This paper examines the operation of alcohol taxes in Canada from a health perspective, and identifies a number of opportunities for protecting the health and safety of the population through ‘discerning and purposeful’ reforms of taxation and pricing policies.