Restaurants Canada Releases 2019 Raise the Bar Report

TORONTO — For the third time since 2015, Restaurants Canada has taken stock of liquor policies impacting foodservice and hospitality businesses from coast to coast in its biennial Raise the Bar report.

This year’s results are mixed, with operational realities for licensed establishments appearing to improve in some regions, while getting worse in others. The report indicates pricing continues to be the main problem area across the board, but lack of selection and onerous processes for purchasing liquor are close contenders.

The report also applauded the federal government’s elimination of the requirement for alcohol going from one province to pass through a provincial liquor authority, opening the door to greater selection across the country. 

Provincial policies evaluated for the 2019 Raise the Barreport were reviewed within four major categories — pricing and selection; licensing and regulation; customer sales; and political/regulatory activity — and, after analysis and weighting, each province was given an overall letter grade. The report’s 2019 grades are as follows:

All survey results featured in the 2019 Raise the Bar report were compiled from more than 700 responses to an online questionnaire that was emailed to foodservice operators across Canada between June 12 and Aug. 26, 2019.