The other day Ontario Finance Minister Charles Sousa was quoted as saying “We are trying to navigate through this thing.” He was talking about selling beer in grocery stores. Frankly if he is still trying to navigate this seemingly thorny issue, the Ontario Liberals need a new navigator.
It might even help if this new navigator knew something about merchandising, grocery stores, the beer business and what Ontario citizens want.
And would someone please silence that Greek chorus from the beer store union? They are saying that a third of the people leaving a grocery store with beer will be drunk. They must be taking advertising 101 and the ‘Big Lie’ from the Harper Conservatives.
But please do not take any lip from that jerk from Barrie posing as the new leader of the opposition. Mind you that jerk is going to keep the Wynne Liberals in power as long as he runs(?) the Tories and Ms. Horwath runs what is left of the provincial NDP.
The point here is that nobody seems to understand is that government is not about running things: it is about serving the needs of the citizens. That includes important things like health care, education, highways, the energy supply and municipal and provincial policing. Selling beer is an incidental. There are some blue stocking people who do not even drink beer; what right do they have to a say? The majority of people who want to buy beer just want greater convenience in their purchasing.
And having beer available in a third of the province’s large grocery stores is the furthest thing from convenient. When you really want to buy a six-pack is when you walk down to the corner convenience store. Did you read that—the operative word was ‘convenience.’ Mr. Sousa should take heed.
What is really galling people right now is you have a banker as finance minister and you have a banker telling him how to sell beer, That is something like the dumb leading the stupid. To make matters worse, they probably both drink single-malt scotch.
And do not get us going about the ignorance of selling part of Hydro One. That is just another way to screw Ontario citizens on energy costs. Sousa and Wynne are damn lucky there is a federal election going on and we do not have time to really give them Hell!
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Copyright 2015 © Peter Lowry
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