Thanks to a $23-million investment, Crown Royal will stay on LCBO shelves
“You hurt my people, and I’m going to hurt you,” Ford said in September, threatening to pull the product over job cuts
It was only last September that Premier Doug Ford poured an entire bottle of Crown Royal on the ground as he called out the distiller’s CEO for planning to close a bottling plant in Amherstburg.
“You hurt my people, and I’m going to hurt you,” said Ford, before unscrewing the cap and letting the whisky dribble out. It was an entertainingly dramatic scene that will be remembered as one of Ontario’s great cinematic moments. And apparently, it worked. (This isn’t a comment on politics, by the way. It is simply objectively hilarious to have brought a bottle of whisky “from home” to empty out at a press conference.)
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Ford threatened to pull Crown Royal from LCBO shelves in retaliation, recently saying that a full boycott of the product was imminent. Today, however, his office announced that Crown Royal will remain available following the company’s commitment to $23 million in new investments in the province.
In a news release, the Ontario government said that Diageo, the spirits manufacturer that makes Crown Royal, will “explore options to establish a new Ontario canning facility,” and that the commitment includes $3 million toward new ready-to-drink beverages, which will engage a Toronto-based co-packer. A new co-manufacturer in Scarborough will also receive $2 million of the investment to create packaging for pre-mixed beverages.
“This agreement strengthens Ontario’s end-to-end beverage alcohol supply chain—from agriculture and manufacturing to packaging and distribution—while supporting long-term economic growth and resilience,” said the release.
This being an effective negotiation tactic, we will now empty out piles of student loan documents in front of Ford’s office.
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Carly Lewis is a journalist whose work has appeared in the New York Times and the New York Times Magazine, Vanity Fair, Wired, Interview Magazine, Pitchfork, Elle, and Maclean’s, where she is a contributing editor. Her work has been recognized by the National Magazine Awards and the Digital Publishing Awards. She reports on city life, culture—including what people do online—politics, art and crime. She received the Dave Greber Freelance Writers Award for “The Murder of Ashley Wadsworth,” an investigative feature about a Canadian teenager who was killed by a man she met on social media, published by Maclean’s.
