The publicity opportunities for Ontario’s premier come thick and fast with Justin Trudeau in the prime minister’s office in Ottawa. The other day Premier Kathleen Wynne got in on the act out at Pearson Airport welcoming Syrian refugees to Canada. And now that we finally have beer in a few Ontario grocery stores, she wants to add marijuana to the mix.
Wynne wants to steer any federally approved marijuana sales to the Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO). Can you just imagine the outrage from British Columbia Premier Christy Clark when the first LCBO store opens in Vancouver?
Alright, maybe Wynne only wants the LCBO involved in Ontario. And that leaves the feds with a problem. Not all provinces have a pickle up their hindquarters about the exclusivity of the province selling liquor. Some provinces are even quite liberal about how they sell booze.
But here you have Ontario’s premier telling the media to come and see her buy the first six-pack of beer from a Weston Empire’s Loblaw store in Toronto. That is designed to prove how liberal the Ontario government can be. Can you not just see the premier and her partner sucking back on President’s Choice beers and getting on a buzz from a toke while watching Toronto’s Leafs lose on Hockey Night in Rogers’ Land?
Mind you, it is just the times that change; not the quality of the actors. Ontario has had to put up with puritanical governments since it became a province in 1867 under the British North America Act of Westminster. If it had not been for the mineral wealth of Northern Ontario, there would still be farms in the premier’s North Toronto electoral district.
We have to assume that there is no alternative to the type of repressive and bad government, Ontario endures. And we are unlikely to see any of the spunk shown by Justin Trudeau and his team rubbing off in Ontario. In the recent federal election, the federal Liberals had nothing much to lose. They went a little overboard on some of their promises but their hearts seem to be in the right place.
While the premier and her partner could well pose for a poster of Ontario Gothic, it would only make an interesting counterpoint to the Trudeau’s pose for the cover of the U.S. magazine Vogue.
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Copyright 2015 © Peter Lowry
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