The Province of Ontario slipped that in when we were not looking. They are allowing the few grocery stores selling some beer to also sell apple cider. And we are talking the hard stuff here; not your baby’s apple juice.
The announcement from Premier Kathleen Wynne’s office was all socially responsible, quiet and designed to cause no waves. Mind you what waves might be raised are a ho-hum for most Ontario voters. It just might be the hallmark of the Wynne government that anything they find worth doing is to be done very slowly. It is like a form of water torture, the drips are few and far between and they tend to catch you off guard.
And yet it seems the stupid things they do that they tend to ballyhoo. Take selling off of Hydro One to investors. Every penny that electricity prices rise for the next dozen years will be blamed on this silly so-called Liberal government. Yet they are very proud of that decision. They think it impresses people into thinking they are good managers.
But when they quickly dumped the planned Ontario supplement to the Canada Pension Plan, they gave up all pretense of doing something for Ontario retirees. The suggestion with the Ontario plan was to keep our seniors’ heads above water as inflation ate away their pensions. We have to pay for those higher Ontario electricity rates you know.
The only really good news in this is that locally produced cider will have a better chance to be noticed in grocery stores than in the Liquor Control Board emporiums of dullness and bad merchandising. While the very few grocery stores that have been licenced (at what cost and why?) by the government will increase a bit with time.
All we have seen in stores we have found selling beer to-date (and not in our city) are dull and unappealing grocery end-aisles displaying warm beer. Beer and cider are much more appealing purchases when retrieved from a cooler. Just thinking about the refreshing coolness of a modest glass of beer or cider when you get home from grocery shopping can make the entire experience more pleasant.
If Premier Wynne and her cabinet had an ounce of sense, they would have had every grocery store in Ontario promoting Ontario-made cider. It is from Ontario-grown fruit and made by Ontario craft producers Gee, does that mean Ontario jobs?
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Copyright 2016 © Peter Lowry
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