The first minister of Ontario, Doug Ford, threw a bottle of Crown Royal whiskey on the ground around his podium during a Kitchener advertisement on Tuesday, in response to the announcement of the parent company Diageo last week that he will close its Amherstburg bottling plant, ontarium.
“This is what I think about Crown Royal. That’s what they can do,” said Ford, while the amber liquid came out of the bottle.
Diageo, owner of Crown Royal and also has Canadian facilities in GTA, Gimili, Man., And Valleyfield, who, said Thursday that he will close the Ontario facilities in February 2026.
Calls was caused for a boycott of the brand and the suggestion that the province should draw the product from the LCBO shelves.
“They are sitting, simply as presumed as they come … They are hurting Ontario residents,” Ford said about the company, after an unrelated ad.
“A message for the CEO in France: hurt my people, I will hurt you. You will feel the pain in February when these people do not have a payment check.”
“A message for the CEO in France: you hurt my people, I will hurt you.”– Premier Doug Ford
“I encourage all Canadians, all the inhabitants of Ontario, defend people, because you don’t know if you are the next one,” said Ford, added that the company was “a few fries to a happy meal” and “silly like a bag of hammers” for the decision.
In response to a CBC tracking question, a spokesman for the Prime Minister’s office did not clarify whether that meant that Ford would take Crown Royal from Lcbo.
The company has not yet responded to Ford’s comments.
Meanwhile, plant workers, represented by local unifor 200, met with union executives on Tuesday morning to transmit their concerns and questions.
Windsor tomorrowA massive diageo investment for the municipality of St. Clair in Pause
The union leadership was in British Columbia at the National Union Convention last week as the news occurred.
“You are putting an entire community, all these people without work only to get profits for a company, and that is something terrible,” said worker Howard Fox.
“With everything that is happening in today’s world, Canada needs to defend himself and try to maintain jobs, right? So you need solidarity to do so.”
Before Ford’s comments, a spokesman on behalf of Diageo responded to a request for comments from CBC News highlighting a part of last week’s statement that describes the closure.
Unión talks to the province about pulling Crown Royal
“Crown Royal will continue to be puree, distilled and aged in Canada, as has been since 1939,” he said. “Diageo will maintain its important footprint in Canada, even at our Canadian headquarters and warehouse operations in the Metropolitan Area of Toronto and other bottling facilities and distillation in Gimli, Man., And Valleyfield, which.”
Unifor says he believes that the majority of the work of the Amherstburg bottling plant will move to the diageo facilities in Illinois.
John D’A agnolo, president of the local unifor 200, says he has been in contact with the province about taking Crown Royal out of the shelves on the LCBO.
“I have talked to the Ontario government and I told them that you need to get the alcohol from the shelves because this can happen to anyone,” he said. “It is diagnosed at this time. It could happen to any company. You have to make a statement here. It’s enough.”
As for how a boycott could affect the other Canadian diageo workers, D’A agnolo said that if they were those facilities that face the closure and asked for a boycott that could affect their members, he “would not make different.”
“We have to support each other because they could be the next ones and that is what worries me the most,” he said.
During the weekend, Windsor West NDP MPP Lisa Gretzky raised the question of pulling Crown Royal.
“If the bottling installation closed and the works moved to the US., Leaving any ontarium installation and hundreds of Windsor-Essex residents without work, which eliminates good jobs payments that support workers and our communities, do you think Crown Royal should be taken out of the shelves on the LCBO?” she He said in a Facebook post.
Jocelyn Girard is a mother of four children who was recently hired at the plant and transferred her family to Amherstburg for work, signing a one -year lease contract only a few weeks ago.
“It is safe stressful. I hope that with Unifor and Diageo, they can reach some kind of agreement to keep the plant open because we just moved to Amherstburg for this work. I just changed my children to a new school,” he said.
“Not knowing that the future is quite scary.”
The new southwest Ontario builds a pause
The mayor of the municipality of St. Clair, near Sarnia, also in southwest Ontario, says that he has remained away from his products, specifically, Crown Royal since Diageo paused for a new factory last year in his community.
“I used to have Crown Royal and I haven’t bought a bottle of Crown Royal since this was not happening,” Jeff said to the guest presenter Chris Ensing on CBC Radio’s Windsor tomorrow.
Agar says the project “sounded quite well” until the company pulled the brakes in 2024.
“They simply said that he stopped at this time and that everything was out of nowhere and they said … it was nothing that the municipality had done, it was nothing that the government had done.”
Agar says he thinks he had to do with US President Donald Trump.
“Personally I have my own thoughts and is related to a partner in the United States, as they know, the entire rate and the things of the nightmare and the gloom there.”
That said, he says he is still “hopeful.”
“They have not said that they are not sure to come here … so there is still hope,” said Agar. “They are still owners of the property and who knows what the future brings.”
Look | No possibility that diagno changes mind, the expert says:
Janet Patton is a commercial reporter based in Kentucky for the Leader-Leader of Lexington that covers restaurants, bars and bourbon.
She says that Ontario’s choice to get the alcohol from the LCBO shelves is having a “huge” impact on the United States, whether people really understand it or not.
“I think many people probably … Here he probably didn’t realize how bad it was until recently,” Patton told Windsor tomorrow.
“His sales to Canada have dropped 60 percent.”
Listening | Impact Ontario The election of Ontario to get us out of LCBO shelves.
Windsor tomorrowWhat impact is Ontario’s choice to get alcohol from LCBO shelves in the United States?
Is the Diageo decision to end operations in Amherstburg a victim of the US trade war in Canada or a sign of a company that fights the changes in the alcohol sector? Windsor Morning’s guest presenter, Chris Ensing, spoke with Janet Patton, a business reporter for Lexington Herald Leader.
In terms of tariffs and commercial discussions, local officials in the Kentucky area that covers are “quite mom.”
“They are reluctant to speak critically to the president,” he said.
“I don’t think there is someone who is willing to say it, probably, but nobody in Kentucky is anxious for rates,” he said. “We are not dying to have … a commercial war here in Kentucky that involves problems due to any stretch of the imagination.”
Patton Tags Diageo is a “global giant of spirits.”
“It’s huge. So, when they talk about changes, much will be needed to move the needle financially.”
