It’s not strictly part of the Trump trade war, but Manitoba-made Crown Royal is coming off LCBO shelves just like Kentucky bourbon — as a warning, Premier Doug Ford says.
“The message to everyone else: don’t try to hurt Ontario,” Ford told reporters Monday as he confirmed the iconic Canadian whisky will no longer be sold in the province once parent company U.K.-based Diageo closes its bottling and blending plant in Amherstburg next month.
“You’ll be held accountable,” the premier added, noting his consternation at Diageo’s late 2024 decision to drop plans for a $245 million distillery and warehouse employing 100 near Sarnia, creating hundreds of construction jobs.
“They pulled the carpet out from underneath us.”
Two months after scrapping the Sarnia project, Diageo announced it would build a plant and warehouse in Montgomery, Ala.
“Mark my words, it’s going to Alabama,” Ford said Monday of the work at the Amherstburg plant, which is up for sale. It is the largest employer in the town near Windsor with 180 workers represented by Unifor.
Diageo — whose many brands include Johnnie Walker, Tanqueray gin, Smirnoff vodka, Captain Morgan rum and Guinness stout — did not immediately reply to a request for comment from the Star on Monday.
But Diageo officials have said previously that the company will continue making and bottling Crown Royal in Gimli, Man., and bottling the whisky at another plant in Valleyfield, Que., for Canada and export markets other than the United States.
The company employs more than 500 people across Canada aside from its Amherstburg operation which is being closed to “increase the efficiency and resiliency” of manufacturing operations, Diageo said when the closure announcement was made last August.
That prompted a furious Ford to famously pour a large bottle of Crown Royal on the ground at a news conference a few days later at a news conference on supports for workers impacted by the U.S. tariffs.
On Monday, Ford brushed aside concerns that his pending move through the LCBO — one of the largest beverage alcohol buyers in the world — could jeopardize jobs at the Gimli operation and hurt western Canadian grain farmers supplying it.
“They’re closing the plant,” he replied.
Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew said last fall after Ford’s threat that “when you buy Crown Royal you’re supporting Manitoba jobs. There’s a whole supply chain and businesses that support Crown.”
“That’s something Canadians should buy and have access to,” he added.
Ford maintained he remains committed to “work collaboratively” with other provincial governments in the trade war with U.S. President Donald Trump.
The Canadian branch of the Washington, D.C.-based Consumer Choice Center said Ford’s vow to take Crown Royal off LCBO shelves is an “abandonment” of his push to provide consumers with more choice on where they buy booze and urged him to end the boycott of American spirits, wine and beer.
“Ford’s decision last year to ban U.S. alcohol from LCBO stores was wrong, and this move takes things to a whole new level,” Jay Goldberg wrote in a statement.
The LCBO is sitting on about $80 million worth of American booze and says the ban on U.S. sales has caused a surged in demand for Ontario and Canadian wine and spirits.
