The Ontario government is moving up its expansion of ready-to-drink mixer sales in convenience stores, as the province’s unionized liquor store employees continue to strike over it.
The change was supposed to take effect Aug. 1 but will now happen on Thursday of this week, Premier Doug Ford announced Monday.
Even so, a taxpayer group says the government isn’t going far enough and should seize the “perfect opportunity” of allowing grocery and convenience stores to sell spirits, rather than reserving that right for the LCBO, Ontario’s retail crown corporation for alcohol.
“The union says that they offer the best service, the best customer service and the best choice and selection. But while they are on strike we believe that Ontarians should have an option,” Ontario director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation Jay Goldberg told reporters outside Queen’s Park on Friday.
“Ontarians should have a choice and we can see how it goes at grocery stores. Ultimately, Ontarians can be the judge as to whether or not these unionized government-run LCBO locations are actually the best in terms of convenience, price and service.”
Goldberg called on the Ford government to consider permitting spirit sales in grocery stores and other private retailers amid the strike, saying it was the “perfect opportunity” to reevaluate the rationale behind the LCBO’s monopoly on spirit sales, which he called a “war on convenience.”
Spirit sales are already permitted in grocery stores and private retailers in Alberta and Saskatchewan and beer and wine is available in all convenience stores in Quebec.
The Ford government has so far declined to make any change from the LCBO being the “exclusive seller of spirits across the province.”
Despite this, OPSEU, the union representing LCBO workers, has fought against even the expansion of ready-to-drink beverages into corner stores, which it says will hurt its members’ work hours..
“Ford’s happy to give away Ontario’s crown jewel,” said OPSEU president JP Hornick earlier this month.
“LCBO workers have come forward in their thousands to say that we will not stand by while this government throws away Ontarians’ money and gives it to billionaires and CEOs.”
The LCBO responded to the strike by saying that “despite its best efforts” it could not reach a deal with OPSEU.
“If they want to negotiate over (ready-to-drink), the deal is off,” Ford told reporters in Etobicoke on Wednesday. “Let me be very clear. It is done, it is gone. That ship has sailed. It’s halfway across Lake Ontario.”
For the past week, the LCBO has closed all of its locations provincewide but it plans to reopen 32 stores on July 19 for limited hours, three days a week.
“Ford’s obviously confident that Ontarians will find it handy to pick up a raspberry seltzer while they’re at the grocery store,” Goldberg said.