The confirmation process of Ontario’s provincial government was shown up for how artificial and shallow it is the other day. A lawyer named Ed Waitzer appeared before the Standing Committee on Government Agencies because he has been chosen to head the Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO). Yet Waitzer appeared to have less knowledge or interest in the operations of the LCBO than the customer who buys her weekly bottle of cheap sherry from one of its more than 600 stores.
A senior lawyer with a major law firm in Toronto and a former securities commission head, Waitzer handled friendly and unfriendly questions alike with few opinions and apparently little knowledge of the job. Knowing Mr. Waitzer from the past, we must report that he would not be high on the list of our choices as chair of the LCBO.
But anyone being offered the job of running a corporation with sales of almost $5 billion per year for some 18,000 products and providing the government of Ontario with $1.7 billion in profit, you would think he would care enough to brief himself.
Even if the intent is to eventually privatize liquor sales in Ontario, you would think that you would want a chair with at least some understanding of the marketplace, employee relations, supplier negotiations, alcohol-related problems, alcohol products or effective merchandising. The last thing the LCBO would seem to need is someone who can be somewhat officious and legalistic and claims to have no opinions on the important questions facing the agency.
In our opinion, it would be seriously stupid for the government to have someone without extensive industry background in control of the LCBO when it transfers alcoholic beverage sales in Ontario to the private sector. When you find that the Conservatives on the committee voted unanimously to confirm Mr. Waitzer, you can comprehend the concern. Privatizing liquor sales in Ontario can be a very profitable step for any Ontario government and the Ontario Conservatives have recently climbed on board that bandwagon. Just because the current Finance Minister Charles Sousa and present Premier Kathleen Wynne seem to be blind to this opportunity, does not mean it will not happen within the next few years.
And besides, the committee did not seem interested in why Mr. Waitzer is the choice of a Liberal government?
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Copyright 2013 © Peter Lowry
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