You would not have thought it of the always sensible Canadians, but during their Covid lockdown alcohol was deemed an essential service despite warnings that isolated people stocking up on drinks might not be the absolute best idea ever.
Sales went through the roof way back in March when the coronavirus hit the country.
Canadians, according to the national broadcaster, CBC, are among the heaviest drinkers per capita in the developed world. Deaths related to alcohol are on a par with cardiac failures.
An article on the CBC website at the start of the epidemic said authorities were worried people dependent on alcohol would clog up the health system.
It quoted Ontario's colourful premier, Doug Ford, whose family has a history with substance abuse, saying: "There are people out there with addictions. We're there to help them."
It also quoted celebrated journalist and academic and former drinker Ann Dowsett-Johnston empathising.
Canada's provinces were asking citizens to face a tough period, she said. "Alcohol is how we relax, we celebrate, we reward and we deal with anxiety ..."
Covid has killed more than 9,000 people in Canada despite it being a strong and mature industrial economy with a fraction of our population.
But it is also led by emotionally smart politicians.
Unlike SA, where we made lockdown especially miserable by banning alcohol and tobacco and losing millions in tax revenue in the process, the Canadian economy is rebounding strongly despite, says a report from the National Bank of Canada, "a formidable road ahead".
If the president goes along with even a fraction of this spend, he is utterly lost
The bank revised its earlier forecasts of 2020 GDP contraction from a fall of 7.1% to 5.7%.
Like us, second-quarter GDP showed a record annualised fall - 36.7% in its case.
Unlike us, Canada was able not only to keep households afloat - it increased the amounts the new jobless had been earning.
In the second-quarter emergency benefits paid C$46bn (about R566bn) to people laid off, while their actual loss of pay was C$21bn.
Some of those would have worked for Air Canada, privatised more than 30 years ago and still flying.
Here, SA Airways, state-owned and not flying at all, is thoroughly bankrupt.
A rescue plan collapsed on Thursday despite the government rashly promising in July it would "mobilise funding for the short, medium and long-term requirements, to create a viable and sustainable new SA national airline".
Rubbish, as it turned out.
There's just no money, but then, out of the blue, like a satanic avenger as creditors met on Friday to decide the next step, lands an announcement that the department of public enterprises (minister, Pravin Gordhan) has written to say the cabinet is firmly committed to finding the R10.5bn the airline requires to come out of business rescue.
That means finance minister Tito Mboweni, stubborn as he may be, is going to have to find the money.
I would not be surprised if he resigns over the matter.
Treasury officials are dismayed; their minister ignored.
If President Cyril Ramaphosa wants to retain a shred of fiscal credibility coming out of the Covid crisis into an era of recovery, he cannot permit this.
South Africans have suffered great hardship through the Covid crisis while government officials and ANC leeches stole millions
You can see Gordhan's game. Saving SAA is his pet project.
At some stage the cabinet would have made a "collective" thoughtless decision to keep SAA flying, regardless.
Gordhan will soon shove that back in the faces of ministers already facing some R390bn of short- and medium-term spending and public sector wage cuts and expect them to take more pain.
He should not succeed.
South Africans have suffered great hardship through the Covid crisis while government officials and ANC leeches stole millions from under their noses.
To now find R10.5bn to keep an ANC vanity project like SAA in the air while people are literally falling into Covid-induced malnutrition in the Eastern Cape would be beyond disgusting.
No doubt there is already a mad scramble under way to find the money. The Public Investment Corporation is supposed to be buying half of Eskom's R480bn debt.
Would it notice an extra R10.5bn? Where else is there cash? The Reserve Bank?
Private banks? Forget it. Unemployment funds? Road Accident Fund? There are untold billions in mine-rehabilitation funds.
The Guptas liked the look of that money but it is hard to get hold of honestly. It doesn't matter.
Ramaphosa has been talking a good game lately, of hope and renewal.
Of a new economy and a capable state. Of taking down the corrupt.
Now he must prepare to lose either Mboweni or Gordhan. For if he goes along with even a fraction of this spend, he is utterly lost.
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