Connecting The Dots

Were we abundantly blessed with critical-thinking skills, we would have no problem asking some serious questions about the direction in which Ontario is headed with Doug Ford at the helm. As well, we would be able to discern a pattern that suggests the premier is leading us nowhere good.

I am hardly the first to note that this Progressive Conservative government has been progressively and relentlessly paring down the revenues we need to fund our healthcare, our education system, our infrastructure and our social safety net; to be fair, this process long predates Ford's ascension. But since the time of Mike Harris and his Common Sense Revolution, it has only gotten worse.

• In the guise of helping 'the little guy',  Ford has kept extending a popular gas-tax cut that, while saving the average household about $130 per year, has thus far cost the treasury, since its inception in 2022, a total of  $3.2 billion. 
• Then, of course, there is the ending of licence plate renewal fees, again costing the treasure about $1.1 billion per year.
• Additionally, as I pointed out in a recent blog post, there is the war against the LCBO, a public institution that on average contributes about $2.5 billion to the provincial coffers.
• And on the expenditure side, it has been estimated that the early cancellation of the Beer Store agreement in order to get more product into private hands could cost upwards of $1 billion.

So where does all of this lead? To an impoverished public purse and a turn to the private sector to fill the void. 

Jordan Roberts writes of the move to put more alcohol into stores, now that the way has been paved for beer and premixed cocktails:

Having won this major battle for beer and wine revenue, Ontario’s big box stores and grocery stores will put additional energy into lobbying to sell spirits like gin, vodka and whiskey. “Hard liquor” is currently only sold at the LCBO or LCBO-licensed outlets. The inclusion of ready-to-drink products (like hard seltzer) in the announcement will help support industry’s argument that they should be allowed to sell all kinds of alcohol, because they are already selling products which include spirits.

The chains have also been lobbying for the right to be wholesalers and distributors of alcohol, taking advantage of their own integrated distribution systems and subsidiaries. Currently, only the LCBO and the Beer Store can run alcohol distribution in the province.

The fate of the LCBO becomes increasingly precarious, as the prospects of grocery and big-box store  profits soar, especially if one considers  the following:

Claudia Hepburn, who was appointed to the board of the LCBO in 2021, is Galen Weston’s first cousin. Galen Weston, of course, is the chairman of Loblaws’, and stands to benefit enormously from these changes. 

The there is the chair of the LCBO, Carmine Nigro,

a developer (CEO of Craft Development) who was hosted at the premier’s table at Kayla Ford’s wedding reception. Nigro’s company benefited from a number of MZOs (or Ministerial Zoning Orders, which are fast tracked zoning approvals) from Ford’s government. Prior to MZOs being issued to his company, Nigro was also vice president of the PC Ontario Fund, a fundraising arm of the Ontario PC party. Nigro is also part of the controversial scheme at Ontario Place, as chair of the Ontario Place Corporation. 

Thanks to available public sources, all of these facts are fairly accessible to the public. But it is up to all of us to connect the dots to see the larger picture, one that Jordan Roberts concludes is pretty grim:

Within this strategy, a key tactic is making sure government coffers are empty, so that government cannot provide services to its constituents, ensuring the only options for services are private ones. In that regard, the Ford government’s moves on alcohol sales are not only a gift to friends and donors in the private sector, and a way to reduce the influence of labour unions, but another nail in the coffin for Ontario’s government revenues.