FORD CHANNELLING TRUMP
Premier’s protectionism sure sounding like U.S. Prez
Doug Ford is sounding more and more like Donald Trump as the days go by. And yet, despite the hatred so many Canadians have for Trump, Ford’s popularity is increasing.
His stunt of pouring out a bottle of Crown Royal and telling the people of Ontario not to drink it, is absolutely ridiculous but will probably work for him politically.
Ford went on his rant against Crown Royal and their parent company Diageo last Tuesday as he reacted to the news that the company was closing its bottling facility in Amherstburg near Windsor. At the end of the news conference that touched on building homes faster, protecting Ontario workers, crime, and more, Ford went on his rant against the company without even being asked about the plant closure.
“A message to the CEO in France: You hurt my people, I’m going to hurt you. You’re going to feel the pain in February when these people don’t have a paycheque,” Ford said.
Ford called the people at Diageo “dumb as a bag of hammers” and said they were “ a few fries short of a Happy Meal.” Seems Ford has lost his copy of the book he constantly talks about. How to Win Friends and Influence People.
The premier framed the plant closure as part of his fight against Donald Trump and the trade war with the United States. The company says the decision was taken ages ago, before Trump was elected, and has nothing to do with tariffs or the trade war.
If the people of Ontario do take Ford up on his call to boycott Crown Royal, they will only be hurting Canadian jobs that are for the most part supported by American consumers.
Crown Royal is only made in Canada, either in Gimli, Manitoba or Valleyfield, Quebec. The company buys more than $5.5 million worth of corn, barley and rye to make Crown Royal and employs hundreds across the country.
The Amherstburg bottling plant took product from Valleyfield or Gimli and packaged it for export to the American market. None of it was made there, though the company had planned to build a Crown Royal production facility in nearby St. Clair Township but recently put the project on pause.
Good luck to Ford convincing this company or any other to invest in Ontario as long as he keeps up the theatrics of threatening any firm that crosses him politically.
Ford sounded last Tuesday like he was threatening to delist every product made by Diageo which would include Crown Royal, Johnnie Walker, Tanqueray Gin, Guinness, Smirnoff, Captain Morgan, and many other popular brands. His staff confirmed that unless Diageo reverses their decision, Ford won’t rule out taking all those products off the shelves of the LCBO just as he did with American products a few months ago.
Would that hurt Diageo?
Perhaps, but not as much as would think.
While Ford says the LCBO is Diageo’s biggest customer in North American, about 75% of all Crown Royal produced and sold globally is sold to the American market. Crown Royal is the No. 1 selling whisky in the United States and all of it is made in Canada, by Canadians.
A market like Texas, where Crown Royal dominates, likely buys more of the product than all of Canada.
Ford trash talking the company does nothing to help keep all those Canadian jobs that won’t be disappearing at Amherstburg. There are roughly 500 employees of Diageo in Canada that will remain including more than 100 in Ontario including a Canadian head office in Toronto.
For months now Ford has denounced Trump for his protectionist measures, for demanding that jobs and manufacturing come back to the United States. Now Ford is going around demanding that people only buy products made in Ontario even attacking a product made elsewhere in Canada.
They say you become what you hate. It’s clear Ford now hates Trump even as he slowly turns into a Canadian copy of the American president.
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