Earlier this month, we reported that Ontario Premier Doug Ford made good on his threat to yank all Yankee booze off the shelves of the more than 600 government-owned LCBO stores in the province.

As well, restaurants with liquor licences would no longer be permitted to order U.S. hootch either. This is especially sad: the hospitality sector was hammered during the COVID crisis; now these businesses are being further impeded by political machinations.

Alas, the province’s chief cherry cheesecake enthusiast stated he was “standing up for Ontarians” vis-à-vis the ongoing tariff tussle between the U.S. and Canada.

But as we reported earlier, we questioned the logic in removing an estimated $1 billion worth of stock that had already been bought and paid for. Isn’t that affecting the ever-beleaguered Ontario taxpayer more so than U.S. liquor producers?

Alas, in the comments section, a handful of viewers blasted Rebel News for not realizing that the LCBO buys U.S. booze on a consignment basis, meaning it was not bought and paid for. OK, we decided to fact-check the issue and set the record straight if need be.

So, we reached out to the LCBO. But apparently, this query was too hot to handle for the booze monopoly, and we were referred to the Ministry of Finance.

Very well. We sent the following three questions to the ministry’s media relations department:

1. I'm trying to seek clarity as to whether the LCBO buys liquor or sells it on a consignment basis?
2. If it is a consignment process, typically, how much alcohol is typically returned to suppliers on an annual basis (ballpark dollar value)?
3. Recently, China applied tariffs on certain Canadian goods. Will the LCBO be ordered to remove made in China products from store shelves? If not, why not?

At first, they seemed keen to answer, even asking what our deadline was. And then as the days dragged on and the deadline passed, keenness turned into radio silence. But why?

We also visited the Ministry of Finance’s headquarters in Toronto. Not only did we fail to get someone on camera, but a security guard said it would be impossible to even convey a message to any of the workers there — including media relations people! (Yet again, another entity with a media relations staff that is unable or unwilling to relate to the media.) Baffling.

Plan B: we phoned the LCBO’s customer service line, Hello LCBO. Guess what? A customer service rep told us that the booze is NOT bought on consignment.

We also visited several stores asking employees about how the LCBO buys liquor. Everyone said the consignment line is a red herring.

Indeed, at some stores we noticed a clearance section of marked-down booze. Question: if this stuff was bought on consignment, why would the LCBO deeply discount these products as opposed to returning to sender for a full refund? That makes no sense — unless, as we suspect, this merchandise was indeed bought and paid for.

Bottom line: don’t believe the hype. About $1 billion in U.S. liquor is now languishing in some warehouse. But for Premier Ford, it would appear that the ends justify the means when it comes to staging photo ops — even if it's the Ontario taxpayer who is left nursing a hangover...

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