Crossing The Quebec Border For Booze Is Going To Get More Expensive With A Price Hike

You might have to dish out more cash to get your favourite alcoholic beverages soon. With the SAQ price increase, it's going to be more expensive to get booze in Quebec whether you live there or are crossing the border from Ottawa. However, wines and spirits won't be as pricey as they could've been this year.

The SAQ, an importer and distributor of wines, beers and spirits in Quebec, confirmed that the annual price hike will happen on August 16.

With this adjustment, 1,828 of the 2,798 products offered will be affected and see an average increase of 1.8% or $0.42.

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For the 192 wines that are below $12, 11 of them will become more expensive than that.

However, the SAQ will be working to make sure the number of products that are less than $12 is brought back to what it was before the increase.

This price adjustment was first announced in June after the annual May increase was postponed because of the COVID-19 pandemic and the effect it had on Quebec households.

In some good news, 926 products will stay the way they are and see no price changes.

There will also be 44 price reductions added to the 138 that have already happened since November 2019.

For all of 2020, booze in Quebec could've been even more expensive to buy.

Normally there are two increases that are allowed to happen in May and November every year.

Since we're living in unusual times, this one is the only upward price adjustment that the SAQ will do since the second one has been cancelled.

The SAQ pins the reason for this particular increase on the fluctuation of the Euro and exchange rates of the US dollar that significantly impacted products imported with those currencies.

Also, taxes on alcoholic beverages played a part.

Producers of the wine and spirits are the ones who mainly request price hikes.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, there were reports of increased alcohol sales in Canada.

Ottawa Public Health had to tell Canadians back in June to be careful with their consumption.