All that booze isn't going anywhere, at least for now.
For months, the LCBO has been sitting on an $80-million stockpile of U.S. alcohol — all of it yanked off store shelves back in March as retaliation for Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs.
The Ontario Liberals have called on the Ford government to sell that huge stash of bourbon, wine and spritzers and donate the money to charitable causes, following the lead of other provinces, including Manitoba, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island.
But in a year-end interview with CBC News that aired earlier this week, Ontario Finance Minister Peter Bethlenfalvy vowed to hold firm on the U.S. booze boycott. He said his government will only sell that stockpile if America fully removes the tariffs.
"This is something we've sent a very clear signal [on]," Bethlenfalvy said. "It's not something we want to do, but we've been very clear about that since day one.”
Tom Cooper, a business professor at Memorial University in Newfoundland and Labrador, was a recent guest on our Closer Look podcast. He said it would be "a no-brainer" for Ontario to follow the lead of other jurisdictions and sell the bottles for a good cause.
He pointed out that the alcohol sitting in warehouses has already been purchased by the LCBO.
"The boycott is still going to be there," Cooper told the podcast. "So it's not like: 'Hey, we're going to start to put things on the shelf.' They have this inventory that's sitting there...When these disappear, they disappear. It's not like we're ordering a whole bunch of new bourbon or California wines to come in."
Cooper said he hopes the Ford government changes its mind.
“It’s a good political win for them to say: ‘Look, we took a hard line. We've been leading the opposition in Canada around the tariffs, but we decided to try and help some groups that really are trying to do good in the community,’” he said.
You can watch the full interview HERE.
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