The Ontario liquor agency is increasing a rate that charges the brewers, a measure that would increase the cost of beer for all retailers, restaurants and bars in the province.
The LCBO movement occurs a few days before the provincial elections on Thursday.
The LCBO published information on the increase in the rate on its website on Monday within a few hours of the Ontario PC leader, Doug Ford, revealing a new campaign promise to discard the minimum mandatory prices of the province for alcohol.
The increase will enter into force on April 1.
Cummera a 4.4 percent jump in what the LCBO calls “service cost”, a tax that applies to all beer products, whether imported or national, sold in retail stores such as the beer store, supermarkets, stores of convenience and retail retail points of sale, as well as in beer distributed to bars and restaurants.
For the beer sold in a retailer, the rate is currently established in 74.11 cents per liter and would increase to 77.37 cents per liter in April. This translates into a total of $ 8.78 in a case of 24 cans of “tall child” (473 ml), an increase of 37 cents from the current rate.
Retailers are not obliged to transmit the increase in the rate to consumers, but if they do not, the walk will eat their profits.
The service cost rate collected in the beer distributed to bars and restaurants is lower than the rate applied to retail points of sale, but will also increase by 4.4 percent.
CBC News asked the LCBO on Tuesday morning to explain the justification behind the increase, but the agency has not yet responded.
‘Beer will be more expensive’
The Ontario craft beer industry is exploiting the increase in rates, saying that beer drinkers will increase.
“At a time when supporting the place has never been more important in front of US tariff A CBC News.
Rate increases “They only mean one thing: beer will be more expensive for consumers,” Simmons said.
He is asking all parties in the electoral campaign that undertakes to reverse the increase in the rate and reduce other taxes on artisanal brewers owned by Ontario.
The Ontario PC leader, Doug Ford, launched the electoral platform of his party on Monday. As Lorenda Reddekopp of CBC reports, it includes proposals related to the rate and billions of dollars in new expenses. However, it is not clear how a re -elected PC government would pay for everything.
After CBC News divided this story on Tuesday, a spokesman for the Ontario PC Party campaign said that a re -elected Ford government would not proceed with this increase.
Liberalize alcohol sales and keep drinking prices low has been a dominant issue of Ford time in government.
Its movement to open alcohol sales to convenience stores last summer will cost taxpayers at least $ 600 million, according to an analysis of the province’s financial responsibility office, published a day before Ford triggered the elections to the snapshot.
The PC platform launched on Monday contained a new promise to discard the minimal retail price of ontarium for liquor.
In a press conference, Ford described the justification of the Minimum Ontario Price Law, which prevents excessive alcohol consumption, such as the biggest joke I have heard. ”
Ford said that discarding the minimum price “would put more money in people’s pockets, and that is like a tax exemption.”
