PCs muster key allies in push for convenience store booze

The Progressive Conservatives are working closely with lobbyists and industry associations to promote expanded beer and wine sales — and internal government emails reveal an alliance was in place months ago.

As the Tories strive to keep Premier Doug Ford’s campaign pledge to sell beer in corner stores, they have been co-ordinating efforts with the Ontario Convenience Stores Association (OSCA), the Retail Council of Canada, and other lobby groups.

That has manifested itself in an unusual new website, choiceandfairness.ca, to boost the case for breaking a 10-year deal with the Beer Store signed in 2015 that limits where beer can be sold.

Produced in partnership with private-sector lobby groups — including the convenience stores association, the retail council, Ontario Craft Brewers, and Free My Booze, an online campaign for liberalizing alcohol sales — the site is registered to the provincial government and went live May 15.

In a news release, Dave Bryans, chief executive officer of the OSCA, said “in conjunction” with Queen’s Park, the convenience stores “launched an educational website to clarify all the fictional stories or myths around beer retailing and sales in the province.”

Indeed, it boasts a “fact or fiction” section designed to counter the narrative that it could cost the treasury $1 billion in penalties to the Beer Store to break the agreement signed by the previous Liberal government in 2015 to allow six-packs to be sold in supermarkets.

“Fiction: Re-evaluating the contract with the Beer Store will cost taxpayers up to $1B in damages,” says the site.

“Fact: Let’s be clear: nowhere in the province’s contract with the Beer Store are there any set financial penalties for ending the contract early or breaching any of its conditions,” it claims.

But as the Toronto Star has reported, the 27-page agreement contains wording that says changes would come with costs.

“An arbitration tribunal ... shall treat all obligations in this agreement ... as binding and enforceable against the province despite its status as the Crown, even where the alleged breach results from a change in legislation or public policy,” the agreement states.

“Such an award shall be calculated on the basis of the normal principles of damages for breach of contract.”

A potential $1 billion payout to the Beer Store, owned by Labatt, Molson, Sleeman and 30 small Ontario breweries, has been a hot topic since the Star quoted brewery industry sources citing that figure on April 23.

Mayor John Tory has suggested Ford is cutting transfers to the city of Toronto in order to offset the looming payout to the breweries. “Where is the sense in that?” Tory said May 6. “What does that say about our priorities?” Tory added.