I have certainly not been shy about supporting the recent changes to alcohol distribution in Ontario. It is not the most important issue we face as a province today, but our inability or unwillingness, up until very recently, to modernize an ancient regulatory framework was a problem I am glad we are finally addressing. There’s a lot this government does that irritates me, but I don’t have a problem giving it a pat on the back when I think it’s getting something right. And I think Doug Ford and his government have gotten the broad strokes of this right. Frankly, I wish they had done it sooner.
That does, though, lead us to an interesting issue. Putting beer and coolers into convenience stores was promised by the government before it was elected to its first majority mandate in 2018. Six years ain’t exactly a blistering pace, but it is still arguably a year and a bit too fast — the province had to back out of an existing agreement with the Beer Store, at a cost of $225 million, to get beer and wine and coolers into convenience stores by this month.
I roll my eyes at a lot of the hysterical hand-wringing about the new rules, but if someone says to me that they’re okay with beer at the local Circle K but don’t think it was worth rushing it by a year for $225 million, well, that’s… reasonable. And this is not an issue that is going to go away. The province’s Financial Accountability Office, or FAO, is now looking into this. It’s going to audit the spending to see whether there was value for money. It is very likely it will determine that spending the extra $225 million in order to roll this plan out by this month was wasteful. And the government may take some political heat for that.
But I honestly don’t think it’ll take that much.
First of all, we Ontarians have a habit of being absolutely apocalyptically angry about stuff and then completely forgetting about it 45 seconds later. We are not people for whom perspective comes naturally or easily. Whatever our hair is on fire about this week will likely be forgotten about in a month.
Case in point: Remember how freaked out people were about the Science Centre a few months ago? There remain a few reporters poking away at it, and there will always be some activists who make this their Waterloo, but outside of that context, I’m asking my readers a very simple and honest question: When is the last time you heard anyone talking about it? When was the last time, before I brought it up just now, that you had even thought about it?
See what I mean?
Besides, overall, as the Toronto Star has reported based on internal government polling, the alcohol reforms are generally popular. Not universally so, but by pretty big margins. As people who spend much time watching the Ford government have noticed, we have a premier who is fairly easily deterred by loud opposition. When he actually sticks to his guns on something, that’s a pretty good sign he is confident he has the public on his side. I think he has them on his side on this. Maybe not an outright silent majority, but perhaps an awfully big silent plurality, and for Ford, that’s probably all he needs. To the extent anyone is still thinking about this in six months, they’ll probably like the changes. I don’t think there’s that much more to it politically for the government than that.
And it’s not even clear to me that the FAO will come out with a slam-dunk ruling against Ford. Like I said above, there’s a very good chance it’ll find there was no real fiscal case to spend hundreds of millions to slightly advance the conclusion of the Beer Store deal. But there is another factor. The Beer Store is a big organization with a lot of employees. And I don’t think it’s unreasonable to believe that, in any scenario, the government was going to offer some kind of transition funding or financial lifeline to the organization and its staff. Even if it had waited until the deal had expired and it were no longer legally obligated to offer some remediation, I think, politically, there was going to be something for the Beer Store once this agreement ended.
I don’t know what it was going to be. I don’t know how the FAO will end up quantifying what that would be, if it’ll even try. But I think we have to deduct at least something from the actual tab that breaking this deal cost. Depending on how generous we conclude the government would have been even after the contract expired, the deal may not end up looking as bad as it does in the abstract. That’s just the politics of the matter — the Beer Store was always going to raise hell about losing its monopoly, so it’s fair to assume that any premier, and especially Ford, would offer it some incentive to go along quietly. Was it going to be a $225 million incentive? I dunno. But it was going to be more than nothing.
And nothing the FAO says is going to change that reality. As I said a minute ago, I think the real issue for Ford is much simpler and, frankly, more cheerful (if you’re the premier). The people who are angry about this are going to forget about it. They always do. And the people who like what’s been done are still going to like it six months, a year, or two years from now — whenever Ford calls that next election.
So, sure, it’s not the most important issue we face. But to any voter or opposition politician thinking this is going to do any lasting harm to the premier and his government, let’s just say I have my doubts.
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