Loading ...Ted Chudleigh, the Member of Provincial Parliament for Halton, recently published an article in the Burlington Post about how Ontario needs to rethink how the beer retailing system works.
Mr. Chudleigh has indicated that he will read into the record at Queen’s Park the petition collected by Derek Forward about breaking up the current system. He’s even got a printable PDF online if anyone would like to add their name to the petition (currently the government only accepts petitions that are hand-written).
Now although I am pleased to see a member of the provincial legislature taking up the cause about the flawed beer system that we have, let’s not forget that this is politics. Mr. Chudleigh is a member of the opposition PC party, not the governing Liberals. He’s also picking up the mantle from Mr. Forward, who happens to be a resident of the Halton riding.
That being said, anything that can be done to raise awareness that our beer retail system needs to be fixed is most welcome. We’ll be paying close attention to the reaction (if any) of the government about this issue.
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2 responses so far ↓
1 ruserious // Oct 30, 2008 at 10:16 am
Thank you again for keeping us up to date with the latest events regarding this issue. I personally am a big fan of breaking up the Beer Store monopoly and have already emailed every Liberal MOP asking them to support this petition all the way to ensuring that grocery stores can sell beer - the same way as in Quebec. I would encourage everyone else to do the same.
2 ruserious // Dec 13, 2008 at 10:13 pm
Just to let you all know on Dec. 9th, 2008 our Ontario Liberal government responded unfavourably to the end the Beer Store Monopoly petition.
Despite this bad news I want to personally thank Derek Forward (the originator of the petition), for his tremendous effort in making it this far. For those of you that don’t know this already, Derek does not do things like this for a living. He’s another Ontario taxpayer just like you and I who set aside a tremendous amount of time to stand in front of Beer Stores collecting over 10,000 signatures, meeting with reporters, organizing Internet campaigns, and doing everything he could to capture the public’s attention.
But most importantly, Derek managed to capture the attention of Ted Chudleigh (MPP – Halton, PC Party) who read the petition (P-146) in parliament 11 times. Following the reading of the petition in parliament Derek then met with Jamie Rilett (Stakeholder Relations / Office of the Premier), for over an hour. After that, he went on to meet with Ms. Gina Lee - Communications Advisor to Dwight Duncan (Finance Minister). Quite unfortunately, despite all the readings of the petition in parliament neither of them were aware that the petition did not ask for an elimination of the Beer Store, just opening up the market to competition. As smart as both of these individuals were, they certainly appear to be operating in a bubble around Queen’s Park. He then further went on to meet with Mario Sergio (Liberal MPP - York West). The focus of each conversation that Derek had was that the Liberal government needs to consider the Consumer element, who spends over $2.5 billion dollars at the Beer Store annually, represented by 10,000 signatures looking for change, and that you should at least consider a dialog with the customer stakeholder
Despite all of this effort however, and over 11 days later than expected, the McGuinty Government dismissively responded to the petition with an answer of “The Beer Store is a great system – there is no need to change it - and no need for further discussion.”
Quite clearly, whatever the Liberals agenda is, they do not even want think about the consumer nor consider that a foreign owned monopoly taking $2.5 billion of our money annually could in any way be something that needs to be fixed.
As for what to do next, from what I hear Derek and Ted Chudleigh are putting together a response saying that the Liberal’s response does not dignify 10,000 signatures.
For my part, I’m just trying to thank Derek and Ted for their hard work so far and ensure that everyone knows exactly what the Liberals response was. Please help me spread the message across the province, tell those who don’t know yet that the Beer Store is a foreign owned monopoly kept empowered by the Province of Ontario. And if you also want to tell the premier exactly what you think about this feel free to contact him yourself:
- Call Premier McGuinty - Tel: 416-325-1941 - Fax: 416-325-3745
- eMail Premier McGuinty - https://www.premier.gov.on.ca/feedback/feedback.asp
- Mail Premier McGuinty - Honorable Dalton McGuinty, Room 281, Main Legislative Building, Queen’s Park - Toronto, ON M7A 1A4
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