It’s easier to buy alcohol in Ontario than fresh fruit and vegetables. SMH
You have to frame this decision this way: “How does it make money for Couche-Tard?”
Just like the (terrible) Staples/Service Ontario deal, this is Doug being Doug and “doing deals”. He’s only ever been a small-business failson whose enablers cover for him at every turn, and he loves playing business and loves it when everyone gets a win. Everyone, that is, except citizens of Ontario.
I’m sure that Couche-Tard, even without the Harper connection, saw him coming a mile away.
This is such a fucking bad idea (socially, not even considering financially) and no one talks about it. It’s going to cost us more than money. Making the most harmful drug that curses humanity more available while simultaneously tearing down our addiction treatment. Fucking awesome governance.
More than anything else, my biggest concern is real simple:
Drunk driving is going to go up WAY MORE.
Based on all the drivers I have seen on the road, too many of them lack the restraints to actually follow the rules and not do dumb shit, such as texting while driving, following the rules of the road and giving proper space / signaling, road rage, etc. And we know that there already is a bad enough problem as it is with drunk driving, and how so much of our infrastructure is designed around the necessity of having a car, rather than alternatives for getting around (public transit, primarily).
But now you can drive down to whatever 7/11, gas station, Mac store in your area, grab a six-pack anytime between 7am to 11pm, even on Friday nights? Good luck having all those corner stores trying to enforce the same “no-serve” policy that LCBO and Beer Store employees are expected to follow. You’ll have a lot more bad sales being made where people who shouldn’t be mixing booze with driving (as bad as their latter skills may be, alone) will absolutely be able to do that easier and being far more of a danger on the roads. That is where the biggest costs of drinking is going to come from. And Canada, much like other North Americans, do not have a responsible relationship with booze and drinking.
It is going to be a shit-show for whichever government has to follow in the steps of Ford. Hope you like taxes going up to deal with the consequences of more drunk drivers on the road!
Does the province have staff and a plan to check on the stores? Will there be government employess sent to test the stores alcohol sales hours? Will we be ensuring underage sales are not occuring? Do law enforcement agencies have a plan to measure the impact this may have on impaired driving?
Pfft, of course not.
You’re asking if the government that couldn’t be asked to build housing while asking the feds for millions of immigrants to prop up the economy is planning when there’s money involved? Please, this is the same guy who:
- Built an Ontario Science Centre subway line, then closed the Science Centre.
- Cancelled ServiceOntario franchises, then had to bribe Staples to take it because Staples didn’t think it was profitable enough
This is palm-greasing to the small-business douchebags that vote PC, and a sop to large donors that wanted this to buttress weakening foodservice sales. It’s about doin’ bidness.
service ontario should be an essential service and not seen as a profitable business.
You can thank Mike Harris for that one.
Actually, if there’s something that’s broken in Ontario, you can almost always draw a line back to Harris about it. Drug epidemic? Harris’ closing of mental health facilities. Housing? Harris downloading public housing onto cities. Environmental assessment wait times? Harris gutting the MOE. Transport? Harris’ downloading again. Poor municipal road repair? You guessed it, Harris dumping provincial roads and services onto the cities then cutting their budgets.
It’s tempting to blame Ford for stuff–and I’m sure the booze-in-C-stores will be a gift that keeps giving, both in terms of social costs and the FOUR BILLION DOLLARS it will cut from government revenues–but he’s not done one-tenth the damage Harris did.
More drunk people in public is exactly what we needed.
Glad our government is focusing on the issues, like booze in corner stores…
To minors too? if not, they should get on that, theyre missing out on a lot of profit.
It’s never described like this, but I think this move opens the door for the province to tighten the screws on cigarette sales, potentially opening the door for a cigarette ban now. The alcohol sales are a lifeline for convenience stores for when they lose cigarettes.
I can’t believe for a moment that removing tobacco from corner stores has ever crossed the mind of anyone in government right now
