Ford puts corner store beer back on tap
The battle between mega-brewers, the government and tax payers is back on the Tory agenda
It looks like Doug Ford’s campaign promise to sell beer in corner stores is back on his government’s agenda.
If you haven’t heard anything about it lately, it’s because the PC’s are holding meetings with stakeholders behind closed doors without any input from the public.
In fact, the government has gone so far as to insist that anyone taking part in these talks must sign a nondisclosure agreement.
Ford tried to move this policy when he was first elected and got a fair bit of pushback from some citizen groups. But the major barrier was existing legislation called the Master Framework Agreement that a previous Liberal government had negotiated with The Beer Store.
It limited beer and wine sales to 450 grocery stores, which gave the mega-brewery owned Beer Store immense power. Unfortunately, that agreement doesn’t expire until 2025.
That puts a number of excellent micro breweries at an extreme disadvantage.
We should be concerned that this is all happening behind closed doors, but a lack of transparency has become a hallmark of the Ford administration.
More importantly, the government seems to want this to happen in early 2024, almost a full year before the deal with The Beer Store expires.
That suggests that the government is heading for another legal battle to break the contract… or a huge settlement payment to make the Beer Store go away.
Either way, it’s going to be Ontario taxpayers who get stuck with the bill.