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After more than six months of “elbows up” rhetoric from the Mark Carney Liberals (which was bought hook, line, and sinker by a gullible electorate), we must present the famous query of former Wendy’s spokeswoman Clara Peller: “Where’s the beef?”

With every passing week since the federal election wrapped in late April, the news has ranged from bad to horrid. From layoffs and bankruptcies to plant closures, there is little evidence of an economic turnaround in the works. Just when-oh-when is Mark “Captain Canuck” Carney going to save the nation?

The latest economic casualty: the Crown Royal bottling facility in Amherstburg, Ont., near Windsor.

In late August, booze behemoth Diageo announced that this plant that employs 160 workers will be mothballed in February. (Diageo’s annual revenue for the fiscal year ending in June 2025 was US$20.25 billion.)

The announcement came as a shocking blow for this town of 25,000.

For its part, Diageo says the closure of the plant, which first opened in 1971, has nothing to do with the ongoing tariff tiff.

Marsha McIntosh, Diageo’s president of North America supply, said the following in a statement: “This was a difficult decision, but one that is crucial to improving the efficiency and resiliency of our supply chain network.”

Rebel News reached out to Diageo’s media relations department for further comment but never heard back. We also paid a visit to the Crown Royal plant, but employees told us they had been instructed not to speak to the media.

The upcoming closure did not go unnoticed by Ontario Premier Doug Ford. The province’s chief cherry cheesecake eating enthusiast recently staged a press conference in which he poured a large bottle of Crown Royal down the drain. What’s more, an angry Ford threatened to play hardball with Diageo should the closure go through as scheduled. Namely, Ford said Diageo products would be delisted from Liquor Control Board of Ontario stores.

In addition to Crown Royal, Diageo produces more than 200 brands, including Johnnie Walker Scotch, Captain Morgan rum, Tanqueray gin, Baileys Irish cream, and Guiness beer.

Ford says the LCBO is Diageo’s biggest customer with sales of Diageo products at the LCBO amounting to approximately $740 million per year.

So far, the company has not reversed course and intends to close the Amherstburg facility in February as planned.

Our take? The announced closure is dire news indeed for the town and we feel for the Crown Royal employees that will be out of a job in the months ahead.

In the meantime, Diageo has five months in which to do the math. Translation: if Ford is indeed serious about a Diageo boycott, does it still make fiscal sense for the company to close the plant if that means surrendering $740 million in annual sales?

But in the bigger picture, we wonder: just what are the “rules” when it comes to alcohol products being listed – and delisted – on LCBO shelves due to geopolitical reasons?

In 2022, Ford ordered the LCBO to yank Russian vodka due to the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine.

Earlier this year, all U.S. products – ranging from California wines to Kentucky bourbon – were also pulled from the shelves.

And now all Diageo products might be delisted as well.

And yet, Crown Royal is still very much a Canadian product. It is distilled and aged in Gimli, Man. There is another Crown Royal bottling plant in Valleyfield, Que. The ingredients in Crown Royal such as corn, rye, and barley are grown in Western Canada. And the Canadian headquarters and warehouse operations of Diageo are situated in the Toronto area.

And another thing: last time we checked, the LCBO stocked 176 products from China. Why? China has an egregious human rights record. China was the source of Covid-19, which killed millions and cost the world economy untold trillions of dollars. And China recently imposed a devastating 76% tariff on Canadian canola seed and a 100% duty on canola oil, meal, and peas.

Why does this communist dictatorship get a pass? The Ministry of Finance will not say. Perhaps Doug Ford, like his best buddy Justin Trudeau, also has “a level of admiration for China”? Or just maybe China makes the world’s finest cherry cheesecake?

In any event, stay tuned to see if Diageo gets “crowned” regarding the Crown Royal plant closure in Amherstburg scheduled for February.

In the meantime, at the rate in which Doug Ford is banning booze, one wonders if there will be all that much liquor for the LCBO to “control” in the months ahead…