Premier took exception to Diageo’s decision last year to shutter a southern Ontario bottling plant, costing 200 jobs
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OTTAWA — It’ll soon be last call for Crown Royal in Ontario.
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Telling reporters he intends to follow through on previously-made threats to remove the whiskey from store shelves in the province, Ontario Premier Doug Ford said Monday he “can’t wait.”
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“One hundred per cent,” Ford said during a late morning news conference at Queen’s Park on Monday. “But I’m not going to waste another bottle of Crown Royal dumping it.”
Ford described the decision to close an Ontario bottling plant “as dumb as a bag of hammers.”
Plant to close in February
Reacting to news that spirits giant Diageo planned to shutter its Crown Royal bottling plant in Amherstburg — a small community around 20 km south of Windsor — and move production to the United States, Ford famously dumped out a bottle of Crown Royal during a Sept. 2, 2025 news conference.
Last year, Diageo insisted the plant’s closure — which will also see the end of around 200 jobs — is not a sign the company is abandoning Canada, and that the deciion to shutter the plant was an effort to streamline and solidify its supply chains.
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“Crown Royal will continue to be mashed, distilled, and aged in Canada, just as it has been since 1939,” the company said in a statement issued in September.
They also plans to keep open its Canadian headquarters in Toronto, as well as distillation facilities in Manitoba and Quebec.
The Amherstburg plant is scheduled to close next month, but no timeline was provided on when Crown Royal would be removed from shelves.
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Other Diageo products still safe on Ontario’s shelves, for now
Diageo, based in London, U.K., ranks among the world’s largest alcoholic beverage companies, including such brands as Johnny Walker, Tanqueray, Captain Morgan, Smirnoff and Guiness under its umbrella.
Ford shrugged off suggestions he may expand the Diago boycott to other brands.
“I’m just going to focus on Crown Royal for now,” Ford said.
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“With the moves that we have made in the last year, we’ve seen wine sales jump 76% — that’s great for grape growers, the small wineries, the large wineries, and aby other alcoholic beverage that we have.”
The LCBO, which removed American products from their shelves last year in retaliation for U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade war, is the world’s largest purchaser of alcohol.
Canada’s decision to stop stocking American booze is hitting U.S. distillers hard. Since 2000, these distillers have grown almost entirely reliant on international sales.
Canada, the U.K. and the European Union accounted for around 70% of all exports of American liquor in 2024, valued at around $2.4 billion.
Retaliatory tariffs have curtailed exports of American spirits to other regions, specifically a 23% drop of exports to Japan and the U.K., and a 12% reduction of exports to the EU.
Last month, Kentucky-based bourbon producer Jim Beam announced a year-long closure of their man distillery, to deal with lessened demand and an abundance of stock.
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That has prompted some producers to adopt more drastic measures — specifically Minnesota-based Phillips Distilling Co. shifting production of its popular Sour Puss liqueur to Canada in an effort to retain sales.
Ford “wrong” to remove Crown Royal: advocacy group
In a statement issued Monday afternoon, Jay Goldberg of the Consumer Choice Centre said Ford’s decision to take Crown Royal off the shelves goes against Ford’s long-time advocacy for increased consumer choice.
“His stated intention to take Crown Royal off the shelves at LCBO stores is an abandonment of that legacy,” Goldberg said.
“Consumers deserve to decide what kind of alcohol they want to buy, be it produced in Canada, the United States, or around the world.”
Crown Royal, Goldberg said, will still be produced and bottled in Canada after the Amherstburg plant closure.
“The only thing this move will serve to do is start a conversation in Ontario about why consumers cannot buy spirits at places other than the LCBO, which is a long overdue conversation that’s worth having,” he said.
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‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source torontosun.com ’
