Temperance activists from Victorian times to the interwar years strove to reduce or ban drinking in Canada, with mixed success. In Canada, the movement to prohibit drinking alcohol peaked between Victorian times and World War I. It was led by small groups emerging from some Protestant congregations all across the country.
In 1875, hundreds of them met in Canada’s metropolis of Montreal to establish a national movement. They called themselves the Dominion Prohibitory Council, changing their name a year later to the Dominion Alliance for the Total Suppression of the Liquor Traffic. In English Canada temperance grew out of progressivism and the Social Gospel, informed by the belief that drinking alcohol is contrary to the will of God.
While immoderate by most people’s standards, temperance is intended as a safeguard for purity and the health of family and public life. Activists in Victorian and Edwardian times, for example, pointed to the bad social impact of excessive drinking, the related problem of gambling, and their corrupting effects on immigrants or the working class, or on men generally. By contrast, other cultures accord alcohol a role in their religious rituals.
In Japan, the Shinto tradition includes “omiki,” sacramental sake. Judaism incorporates ritual wine in the Passover Seder meal, and that is partly why Roman Catholics use wine in their Mass. Moreover, they regard wine as a metaphor for the transformation of hearts.
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