Doug Ford’s $612-million beer boondoggle tab could hardly have arrived at a worse time for him

Posted on January 29, 2025 in Governance Debates

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TheStar.com – Politics/Opinion
Jan. 27, 2025.   By Martin Regg Cohn, Political Columnist

Doug Ford had it all figured out — until it fizzled out Monday, just days out from his big campaign launch.

The premier’s best laid plans were to trigger an early election this Wednesday, the better to beat the bad news. But the big news beat him to it.

Busted. Over beer — and a lot more besides.

Ontario’s financial watchdog has just called out Ford’s scandalous wastefulness: Beer in corner stores could cost taxpayers an additional $612 million to satisfy the demands of big American and international brewers after his government raised its hand — and put its hands in our pockets — to renegotiate a signed agreement without good reason.

It is a devastating critique from an independent overseer of Ontario’s finances, coming at the worst possible time for Ford. In his zeal to bring beer to corner stores early — ahead of this week’s planned early election — the premier gave away the store.

And yet this boondoggle is about much more than beer money. It is also about missed opportunities and misplaced priorities — billions for beer in corner stores, but not enough funding for health care nor his promise of 1.5 million homes.

Now, as the governing Progressive Conservatives plunge us into an unwanted election, let us connect the dots before anyone marks their ballots on Feb. 27.

The additional spending — which the Financial Accountability Office says could reach $1.9 billion by 2030 — comes on top of $7 billion in annual hydro subsidies perpetuated by Ford to keep rates artificially low, another $3 billion in vote-buying rebate cheques and reckless overspending on Ontario Place. Not to mention as much as $175 million for an unnecessary early election.

Why starve hospitals and deprive patients of family physicians while pouring money down the drain for beer and wine? He was determined to outdo the previous Liberal government — which did the heavy lifting of allowing beer and wine into supermarkets — so that he could run a victory lap before hitting the campaign trail.

Now, we are all paying the price. And the big winner?

Donald Trump’s corporate America — including big foreign-owned brewers — is laughing all the way to the bank at the expense of us suckers who are stuck holding the bag. Or the six-pack of beer.

On the eve of a potential tariff war, the Americans have won a windfall thanks to Ford’s inability to negotiate a decent deal. So much for the art of the deal.

Last week, Ford mocked his opposition rivals, saying he couldn’t imagine them negotiating on behalf of Ontario against the American president. As if the premier will somehow save the day after losing his shirt.

It all started with Ford’s populist impulse in 2018 to connect with ordinary Ontarians by making beer a cornerstone of his campaign. Remember “buck a beer?”

Unable to deliver on that promise — brewers couldn’t meet that price — the teetotalling premier was determined to deliver on beer in convenience stores at any cost, in hopes of neutralizing the issue. What makes Ford’s financial transgressions so exasperating is that they were so unnecessary, for beer in corner stores was never a priority or emergency like a pandemic or tariff war.

Now, Ford’s message to voters this week is that he needs the mother of all mandates, a massive majority unlike any before, in order to show the Americans that he means business. Which means less opposition scrutiny of his upside down agenda.

Ford had the past seven years to make good on his promises — on health care and housing, if not booze. Yet only on Monday, on the eve of an election, did his government come forward with a last-minute plan to give two million more Ontarians access to a family doctor within four years (in time for another election).

The pledge includes $1.4 billion in new funding for expanded primary care health teams, as proposed by Dr. Jane Philpott, head of the Queen’s University medical school. It’s worth noting that Philpott is a former federal Liberal health minister who was in talks with the provincial Liberals about running as a candidate before the government recruited her to help it plot a path forward.

Why keep Ford’s rudderless Tories in power if they need prominent Liberals to help them navigate government? It’s a question that will dog the premier as he clings to the pretext that this bizarrely early election is about defending Ontarians against Trump’s tariff war, instead of focusing on the real priorities of voters.

Perhaps the PC campaign machine’s calculations are correct. Certainly the latest polling from Abacus Data for the Star shows Ford with a seemingly unassailable lead.

But what if he’s busted by more unseemly revelations — not just on beer boondoggles but police probes into the Greenbelt?

Elections are about stories that stick — and the first issue in the first week of the campaign is about Ford’s lack of situational awareness. Who would have thought that beer — the issue that defined Ford’s first election campaign seven years ago — would come back to bite him in the behind while he’s so far out in front?

https://www.thestar.com/politics/political-opinion/doug-fords-612-million-beer-boondoggle-tab-could-hardly-have-arrived-at-a-worse-time/article_3a34b2fa-dcf2-11ef-9b40-4b3d2c94ae33.html?source=newsletter&utm_content=a01&utm_source=ts_nl&utm_medium=email&utm_email=0C810E7AE4E7C3CEB3816076F6F9881B&utm_campaign=top_8459

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