The parent company of Crown Royal is going to “feel the pain” when its Amherstburg bottling plant closes early next year, Premier Doug Ford said Friday when asked if the iconic Canadian whisky will be taken off LCBO shelves.
“They’re going to find out the second that last person leaves that plant,” Ford told reporters three days after pouring a bottle of Crown Royal on the ground at a news conference in protest of the decision by United Kingdom-based global spirits giant Diageo to shutter the facility, the largest employer in the town south of Windsor, with 200 employees.
Diageo, which last month reported a 28 per cent drop in operating profits over the last year and a major cost reduction plan, has said the closure is necessary to “increase the efficiency and resiliency of its manufacturing footprint” and noted the company will maintain its “significant footprint across Canada.”
Those properties are a distillery and warehouse operating in Gimli, Man., where Crown Royal is made, a plant in Valleyfield, Que., where the whisky will be bottled for Canada and countries other than the United States, and a Canadian headquarters and warehouse in the Greater Toronto Area.
The premier said he was blindsided by the decision, which follows another blow from Diageo last November, when it cancelled plans for a $245-million distillery and warehouse near Sarnia that would have employed 100 people making about 66 million bottles of whisky a year, mostly Crown Royal, plus as many as 500 construction jobs.The company has not specified which U.S. plants will be among those taking up additional volume of bottling from Amherstburg for the massive American market, other than to say it will occ
Two months after axing the Sarnia plans, Diageo announced it would build a $15-million (U.S.) plant and warehouse in Montgomery, Ala. The company has not specified which U.S. plants will be among those taking up additional volume of bottling from Amherstburg for the massive American market, other than to say it will occur at “multiple” sites on both sides of the border.
“I called them up and said, ‘I’ll give you incentives, I’ll do what I can,’ and they didn’t want to sit down and negotiate. They didn’t talk to Unifor at all, and they’re just moving ahead,” Ford added, referring to offers made to save the Amherstburg plant where workers are represented by Unifor.
The company did not comment Friday when asked about Ford’s threat.
While Ford has encouraged Ontarians to stop buying the whisky, the Amherstburg restaurant Gilligan’s has stopped serving it.
The premier maintained his threats to a company making whisky in another province does not weaken the pro-Canada “elbows-up” stance in the trade war with President Donald Trump over tariffs and pressure on businesses to move more operations to the United States.
“I wouldn’t say it’s a crack,” Ford said. “It’s not about Manitoba. It’s not about (Premier) François Legault and Quebec. They’re going to protect their sectors. I have to protect our sector.”
Publicity generated by the pouring of Crown Royal on the ground has paid off by spurring interest in the Amherstburg operation, the premier added.
“I’ve had a lot of companies call me saying they want to look at that facility. We’re going to give incentives to companies that go in to Amherstburg and create more opportunities.”
