Starting Sept. 5, over 4,000 convenience stores will be able to serve liquor between the hours of 7 a.m. – 11 p.m.
This is allowed after the Ford Government paid out $225,000,000 to the Beer Store to reduce its hold on the current liquor market. This plan originated from Doug Fords 2016 campaign where Ford stated that this deal would be made by 2026, and even though this is a great start to reduce the Beer Stores stranglehold on the liquor market there is still lots more work to be done.
For starters, the 4,100 businesses that have signed this agreement are under half of the original projection of over 8,500. Unless we see sweeping changes to liquor sales regulations, the Beer Store and Ontario state run LCBO will likely keep its hold on the liquor sales market.
Despite that, this deal is an amazing first step for small businesses and chain convenience stores. Yaldo, the head of the Ontario Convenience Store Association, projected a 30-40 per cent increase in overall sales during an interview with Global News. This is also a huge win for Canadian brewers, as 20 per cent of beers and ciders must be from Ontario run smaller breweries. Unfortunately, this number drops to 10 per cent for wine needing to be produced by smaller Ontario wineries.
Overall, the fact that the Beer Store was able to have a stranglehold over the liquor market for as long as it did is unjust and crushes smaller breweries by using cheaper, larger companies’ imported drinks. The failure of the Ontario government to act and create regulations to help their citizens before today, goes to show the unfortunate bias for the wealthy in this province. While this small step in the right direction may help small businesses, it looks doubtful that it will put a dent in Roy Benin’s unjustifiably large bank account. Giving the rich more money to motivate them into these types of legislation is quite frankly overstepping democracy. No middle- or lower-class person has nearly as much of a say in the policy that gets passed at the provincial level and allowing the Beer Store to have an unjust hold on the market as long as they did, only to give them an even bigger payday is absurd. The Ontario taxpayers work hard for what they give to this province and to see that at minimum $20 has been taken from each Ontario taxpayer to give Roy a $225,000,000 payday, all while many live in food insecurity due to the failing social programs in this province, is not only morally flawed, but also downright offensive to everyday Canadians.
Starting Sept. 5, over 4,000 convenience stores will be able to serve liquor between the hours of 7 a.m. – 11 p.m.
This is allowed after the Ford Government paid out $225,000,000 to the Beer Store to reduce its hold on the current liquor market. This plan originated from Doug Fords 2016 campaign where Ford stated that this deal would be made by 2026, and even though this is a great start to reduce the Beer Stores stranglehold on the liquor market there is still lots more work to be done.
For starters, the 4,100 businesses that have signed this agreement are under half of the original projection of over 8,500. Unless we see sweeping changes to liquor sales regulations, the Beer Store and Ontario state run LCBO will likely keep its hold on the liquor sales market.
Despite that, this deal is an amazing first step for small businesses and chain convenience stores. Yaldo, the head of the Ontario Convenience Store Association, projected a 30-40 per cent increase in overall sales during an interview with Global News. This is also a huge win for Canadian brewers, as 20 per cent of beers and ciders must be from Ontario run smaller breweries. Unfortunately, this number drops to 10 per cent for wine needing to be produced by smaller Ontario wineries.
Overall, the fact that the Beer Store was able to have a stranglehold over the liquor market for as long as it did is unjust and crushes smaller breweries by using cheaper, larger companies’ imported drinks. The failure of the Ontario government to act and create regulations to help their citizens before today, goes to show the unfortunate bias for the wealthy in this province. While this small step in the right direction may help small businesses, it looks doubtful that it will put a dent in Roy Benin’s unjustifiably large bank account. Giving the rich more money to motivate them into these types of legislation is quite frankly overstepping democracy. No middle- or lower-class person has nearly as much of a say in the policy that gets passed at the provincial level and allowing the Beer Store to have an unjust hold on the market as long as they did, only to give them an even bigger payday is absurd. The Ontario taxpayers work hard for what they give to this province and to see that at minimum $20 has been taken from each Ontario taxpayer to give Roy a $225,000,000 payday, all while many live in food insecurity due to the failing social programs in this province, is not only morally flawed, but also downright offensive to everyday Canadians.