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Gifts: if the recipient is a French Canadian, many people will buy a bottle of wine as a gift even if they don't know that person drinks or not. People do not give hard liquor as gifts here (stuff like gin, vodka, whisky), but they might sometimes give specialized stronger alcohols like maple liquor.
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No they're not. They can drink, smoke, join the army, vote, live independently, get married, win the lottery. A little more freedom than a 10 year old, I think.
Well in the US they can't buy alcohol and aren't supposed to drink it. They can die for their country though.
That was another thing that struck me as quite odd. Open container laws were a novelty to me.
Same with alcohol in cars: Here it's perfectly legal for the driver to drink while he's driving as long as he doesn't hit the 0.5‰ mark. I heard in most of the US it's even forbidden to drink as a passenger.
Yep. You can't even have an open container inside the car even if neither driver or passenger is drinking it.
Laws and problems: In Canada drunk driving laws are federal but other alcohol laws are provincial. As sandman said the trouble you get in while driving varies from .05 to .08. At .05 you get your car impounded and licence suspended for 12 hours I think. But it's not a criminal offence. At .08 you get a criminal record and can face jail time, and lose your licence.
The legal drinking age in Quebec is 18. In practice many bars will have people as young as 14-15 in them in Quebec. Certainly there are tons of 16-17 year olds in bars that cater to a younger crowd. IDs are sometimes checked but in many bars it is very laxed. Some bars may check your ID if you are not speaking French as this likely means you're not from Quebec and in their minds, more likely to make trouble. (See below for more details.)
Liquor is sold in government stores and corner stores and supermarkets. What each place can sell differs but basically all of them sell beer and wine. Better wine is available in the government stores, and they are the only ones that sell hard liquor. Government stores have gotten very strict with ID, but the small corner stores are more lax. It's very easy to buy beer in Quebec if you look about 16.
As far as drunken youths go, I hate to say it but many of the problems we have are caused by cultural incompatibilities with people who live across our borders. Laws tend to be stricter (a firm 19 to drink in Ontario and a firm 21 in the US) and so a lot of kids from Ontario and New England come to Quebec to let loose.
Irish-British-Nordic style binge drinking is not as common here in Quebec it seems. Most people stop when they are happily tipsy, not falling down drunk. It's actually a bit of societal "meme" in Quebec that the people we share the continent with can't drink responsibility and hold their liquor.
I love being drunk, but definitely don't appreciate people being totally wasted. Being tipsy has maybe another meaning here, as it means less drunk. If Finland is known for anything in this world it's Mika Häkkinen, Nokia, and being severely drunk.
. Being tipsy has maybe another meaning here, as it means less drunk.
Tipsy to me is still a form of drunkenness. Though not extremely drunk. Your behaviour is altered for sure. The French word for this is "pompette". You wouldn't want to drive in that state, but if you wait half an hour or an hour, you'd probably be OK.
Kids, youth and alcohol in Quebec: Many parents start giving sips of alcohol (from daddy's beer or mom's wine glass) when their children are well below the age of 10. Many also will start giving one small glass of wine to their kids with a meal when they are about 13 or so.
As for drinking among teenaged friends, I'd estimate it generally begins around 15-16. High school finishes at age 16-17 here, and at those graduation parties this is definitely alcohol.
The legal drinking age in Quebec is 18. In practice many bars will have people as young as 14-15 in them in Quebec. Certainly there are tons of 16-17 year olds in bars that cater to a younger crowd. IDs are sometimes checked but in many bars it is very laxed. Some bars may check your ID if you are not speaking French as this likely means you're not from Quebec and in their minds, more likely to make trouble. (See below for more details.)
Wow! I didn't know that. Like you said, alcohol laws are very strictly enforced in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
College towns in the US sometimes take it to a whole new level where you need two forms of ID to even enter some bars.
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