Alcohol sales down across Canada [Video]

Some might call them sobering statistics.

For others, they are simply surprising – and that includes one of the people who crunched the numbers.

“We’re selling less booze,” said Sylvain Charlebois, head of the Agri-Food Analytics Lab at Dalhousie University.

According to numbers Charlebois and his colleagues gathered from the 2023-2024 fiscal year, alcohol sales by volume in all provinces – except Prince Edward Island, for which they didn’t find data – were down.

The figures included a 4.2 per cent drop in Nova Scotia and a 15 per cent estimated decline in Alberta.

“There is an underlying trend here, I think, and that’s pushed by the cost-of-living crisis we’re in right now, (along with) immigration, cannabis and health concerns,” Charlebois said.

“I think that we’ve been seeing a growing trend in awareness of the impacts of alcohol on our general health,” said Allison Garber, a Bedford-based sobriety advocate who stopped drinking several years ago.

Garber said while she wouldn’t be surprised …