Ford Reinforces Threat to Boycott Crown Royal

Ontario Premier Doug Ford is doubling down on his pledge to remove Diageo’s Crown Royal Canadian Whisky from Liquor Control Board of Ontario retail stores next month. That’s when the drinks giant is scheduled to close its blending and bottling plant in Amherstburg, Ontario and move its operations to the United States.

While Diageo says all mashing, distilling, and aging of Crown Royal will continue to be done in Canada at its facilities in Quebec and Manitoba, Ford said in a news conference Monday Crown Royal will be pulled from the shelves as “soon as the last worker leaves that plant.” He predicted Diageo would try to move all Crown Royal production to a new plant the company is building in Montgomery, Alabama, but Diageo executives have said all Crown Royal produced for sale in Canada and other export markets will continue to be blended and bottled at its Valleyfield plant in Quebec.

Ford is upset not just with the Amherstburg closing, but with Diageo’s decision to stop work on a $245 million CAD distillery planned for St. Clair, Ontario. He told reporters “they pulled the carpet out from underneath us. All I’m saying is that as a businessperson, if you have your number one customer spending hundreds of millions of dollars, why would you try to hurt that customer?”

The LCBO is the world’s largest single wholesale purchaser of alcoholic beverages, and Ford spearheaded the board’s ongoing boycott of American whiskies after U.S. President Donald Trump slapped Canada with trade tariffs last spring.