Crown Royal spat needs Team Canada approach

“We’re a big family,” Ontario Premier Doug Ford declared on Monday.

“Sometimes, brothers and sisters may disagree, but at the end of the day, make no mistake about it: we are one country. We’re Team Canada.”

Ford’s message of unity was offered during a pizza-shop photo-op after he and Prime Minister Mark Carney met to discuss a number of topics and, it was hoped, assuage the Ontario premier’s concerns about Carney’s recent dealings with China and their potential impact on Canada’s auto sector.

Ford had earlier expressed something akin to outrage after Carney’s trip to China resulted in an agreement to allow importation of up to 49,000 Chinese electric vehicles at a much-reduced tariff rate in exchange for a pledge to lower tariffs on some Canadian canola exports from 85 per cent to 15 per cent.

When that agreement was announced earlier this month, Ford characterized it as “a lopsided deal” and “a terrible, terrible miscalculated decision” that will “hurt our economy and lead to job losses.”

But by the time he and Carney ventured out together in Etobicoke, Ont., to grab a few slices to fuel their continuing lunchtime conversation, the Ontario leader’s tone had moderated considerably. The EV-import deal is now part of “a great auto strategy” of which Ontario is eager to be part.

While we’ve got him in a conciliatory frame of mind, perhaps we could urge the Ontario premier to rethink his position on Canadian-produced rye whisky and his government’s decision to pull Crown Royal from the shelves of Ontario liquor stores.

As folks hereabouts no doubt recall, Ford has made quite a show of his upset over plans by Diageo, the U.K.-based multinational beverage company that owns the Crown Royal Canadian whisky brand, to close a bottling plant in Amberstburg, Ont., and, some fear, eventually relocate those 160 jobs to a new plant in Alabama (the company has stated Crown Royal for Canadian and non-U.S. export markets will continue to be produced in Canada).

At a union rally last fall, Ford went as far as to dump a bottle of Crown Royal out on the ground, calling Diageo’s decision “dumb as a bag of hammers” and vowing to pull Crown Royal from the shelves of Liquor Control Board of Ontario stores in response to the plant closure.

It didn’t take long for Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew and Quebec Finance Minister Eric Gerard to point out that Crown Royal continues to be mashed, distilled, aged and bottled in Canada, in Gimli and Valleyfield, and that an Ontario boycott of the top-selling brand could adversely impact the 400 Canadian workers employed at those two plants.

Ford’s reputation for tough home-team talk and tendency toward occasional blue-collar bombast have been popular with Ontario voters, earning him majority mandates in three successive provincial elections. But on this, he’s in the wrong.

At a time when necessary efforts are being made to secure and strengthen interprovincial commerce, it’s decidedly counterproductive for Ford to focus solely inward and ignore how his blunt-force reactions might affect workers in other provinces.

After quite rightly pointing out his Ontario counterpart sometimes gets fired up in public but will “do the right thing when (he has) a chance to reconsider,” Kinew said this is one of those times.

“This is about sticking together as Team Canada,” he said.

Sound familiar? Team Canada. If Ford can share a slice with the PM and redirect the auto discussion in a more positive direction, surely he can raise a glass of whisky over the fact we’re all just one big family supporting Canadian products on Canadian shelves.

» Winnipeg Free Press