Ontario speeds up alcohol sales plan
TORONTO • Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s government is rushing to get readyto-drink cocktails on grocery store shelves amid a strike at the province’s main liquor retailer that has focused on that very issue.
Finance Minister Peter Bethlenfalvy announced Monday that grocery stores that are already licensed to sell beer and wine can start ordering the premixed cocktails, as well as large packs of beer, to sell starting on Thursday — sooner than the planned Aug. 1 launch of that step.
“Our government is keeping our promise to give people in Ontario choice and convenience while supporting Ontario-made beverage producers across the province, including the Ontario businesses that produce more than 80 per cent of the ready-to-drink beverages sold here in our province,” Bethlenfalvy wrote in a statement.
The sped-up move is part of an already fast-tracked plan to expand alcohol sales in the province. Ford’s previous plan was to get beer, wine and ready-to-drink cocktails in convenience stores and all grocery stores by 2026, but in May he announced that would instead happen this year.
Leadership at the Ontario Public Service Employees Union, whose approximately 10,000 workers at the Liquor Control Board of Ontario walked off the job July 5, has said wages are not the main issue in the labour dispute, rather it is the expanded sale of ready-to-drink cocktails.
Previous rounds of alcohol market expansion in Ontario have kept spirits sales in the hands of the LCBO, and OPSEU worries undoing that will threaten the LCBO and union jobs.
Getting ready-to-drink beverages in grocery stores even sooner is an attempt to undercut the LCBO and amounts to interfering in bargaining, said OPSEU president JP Hornick.
“Ford is clearly trying to deliver on a promise he made to prospective corporate donors from the convenience and grocery industries during the elections,” Hornick wrote in a statement.
“Doug Ford should stop playing politics with the lives of our members and taxpayers’ money.”
Ford has denied he is trying to dismantle or privatize the LCBO and government officials have noted that LCBO revenues have increased through previous rounds of alcohol sales expansions.
Bethlenfalvy has directed the Crown corporation to showcase and promote Ontario beer, wine, spirits and ciders as part of the expansion, and he has said it will still have an important role as a wholesaler.
Ford last week firmly ruled out a reversal on the ready-to-drink expansion.
The 450 grocery stores across the province that are already licensed to sell beer, wine and ciders can begin placing orders for the coolers and seltzers on Thursday and can sell the beverages as soon as they receive them.