Nova Scotia has enough places to buy alcohol
Posted October 17, 2025
The Convenience Industry Council of Canada has been on a campaign to have more provinces allow convenience stores to sell alcoholic beverages. They had success a year ago in Ontario. The Houston government is not rushing to make a decision.
In the spring, 1,500 Nova Scotians age 19 and over were surveyed for their opinions on where people can buy or consume alcoholic beverages. As of October 15, the poll results have not been disclosed.
Alcohol is currently sold at more than 300 retail locations, including 108 NSLC corporate stores and 64 agency stores, plus private wine and specialty stores, on-site stores at breweries and wineries, and farmers’ markets.
The Convenience Industry Council’s mission is to advocate policies that enhance the profitability of its members. It argues that allowing members to sell alcohol will make it more accessible on the handful of days in a year that all of the liquor stores are closed.
There are no laws compelling restaurants, pubs, breweries, wineries, or distilleries to close on certain days.
The real argument for the convenience stores is that having alcohol would provide a high value product on their shelves and would bring in customers to buy other items.
The province should worry about the impact on the NSLC’s profitability. In the year ending March 31, 2025 the corporation delivered $281 million in profit to the provincial treasury.
Meanwhile, the Convenience Industry Council is running a victory lap on its efforts in Ontario a year ago.
“One year ago, Ontario took a bold step to modernize its alcohol retail system, allowing thousands of convenience stores to sell beer, wine, and ready-to-drink beverages. This wasn’t just a policy shift—it was a recognition that consumers deserve greater convenience and that local businesses, the backbone of communities, need support.”
They do not point out that their members include giant retailers such as Loblaws, Sobeys, and Canadian Tire. Not many Nova Scotians would say those retailers “need support.”
Likewise the number of “convenience” stores in Nova Scotia would greatly outnumber the NSLC stores.
Based on its latest year-end report, if the NSLC were to lose perhaps a quarter of its sales, it would lose more than a quarter of its profit. It would be difficult to immediately reduce a quarter of its expenses. The profit reduction might amount to $100 million in the first year, money that today is helping to pay for essential services such as health care.
There could be a downward spiral of NSLC stores being closed because of competition from nearby convenience stores.
The health care community has also stepped into the discussion. In June, 14 physicians who specialize in addiction medicine wrote an open letter to Finance Minister John Lohr, whose department is overseeing the process, saying alcohol already causes more than 500 deaths a year in Nova Scotia.
Doctors Nova Scotia president Shelly McNeil says that Ontario’s health care system is already seeing the downside of greater retail access. Ontario has seen a 17 per cent increase in hospital visits connected to alcohol. A similar increase in Nova Scotia would mean 7,600 extra visits to the emergency department each year.
A health care system experiencing more demand while receiving less funding is guaranteed to result in a weaker system. One of the many side effects will be to discourage people from coming to live in Nova Scotia.
Convenience stores have been among the many beneficiaries of Nova Scotia’s strong population growth since 2020. Good improvements in health care wait times have been important. This is not the time to move in the opposite direction.
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