How the regulation of liquor shaped the modern Canadian state. Cultural pastime, profitable industry, or harmful influence on the nation? Liquor was a tricky issue for municipal, provincial, and federal governments in Canada. Liquor and the Liberal State traces the takeover of liquor regulation by the Ontario provincial government in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Dan Malleck explores how notions of individual freedom, equality, and property rights were debated, challenged, and modified in response to a vocal prohibitionist movement and equally vocal liquor industry. Over time, the drink question became as political as it was moral--a key issue in the establishment of judicial definitions of provincial and federal rights, and, ultimately, in the crafting of the modern state. This work demonstrates the challenges governments faced when dealing with the seemingly simple, but tremendously complicated, alcoholic beverage. About the Author: Dan Malleck is a professor of health sciences at Brock University, where he also serves as director of the Centre for Canadian Studies. His publications include Try to Control Yourself: The Regulation of Public Drinking in Post-Prohibition Ontario, 1927-44 and When Good Drugs Go Bad: Opium, Medicine, and the Origins of Canada's Drug Laws.