Ontario Finance Minister Charles Sousa hardly needs us to tell him what to do. Premier Wynne put Ed Clark of TD Bank in charge. That way, she tells Clark and Clark tells Sousa. No comments from the cheap seats are allowed.
But do they have any idea of how long it will take to read the budget speech to the Ontario Legislature? Between the Premier’s ridiculous plans for beer and wine, Clark’s decision to sell Hydro One and Sousa’s housekeeping items, it is going to take two days to get through it all.
It will be the first time the news media will have to bring their jammies to a budget lock- up. Imagine all the nice comments the media people will have to say about the Ontario government after being in a budget lock-up overnight. And just imagine the comments if they are served cold camembert for breakfast!
The length of time required for the budget announcements makes sense when you consider that Premier Wynne has made the decision that only one in five of the large supermarkets in Ontario will be allowed to sell beer and wine. She is going to need lots of time to explain that piece of stupidity. The real problem is that it lays out for all to see that this woman seems to know very little about beverage alcohol and even less about grocery marketing.
She thinks that liqueurs and brandies and grain alcohol are somehow different from beer and wine. She seems ignorant of the fact that brandy, port and sherry are wines. And does she really think people can get less inebriated on 350 millilitres of five per cent alcohol beer than on a shot (37 millilitres) of 40 per cent alcohol in a mixed drink?
Who let this woman loose in our province? If we owned a grocery store and she said we were not allowed to even join the lottery for a booze licence, we would see her in court for discriminatory treatment. Does the lady seriously think that the Ontario government will not be able to make as much money if we privatized the Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO)? Ontario citizens have been ripped off by the Beer Store and the LCBO for so many years it is just another form of tax and we are used to it.
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Copyright 2015 © Peter Lowry
Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to peter@lowry.me
