{"id":114926,"date":"2025-09-02T19:21:04","date_gmt":"2025-09-02T19:21:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/114926\/"},"modified":"2025-09-02T19:21:04","modified_gmt":"2025-09-02T19:21:04","slug":"ford-dumps-crown-royal-bottle-in-protest-of-plant-closure-theyre-hurting-ontario","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/114926\/","title":{"rendered":"Ford dumps Crown Royal bottle in protest of plant closure: \u2018They\u2019re hurting Ontario\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ontario Premier Doug Ford<\/a> dumped out a bottle of Crown Royal<\/a> Tuesday in protest of the whisky maker\u2019s decision to shutter its bottling facility in the province.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Ford called out Diageo over the shuttering of its Amherstburg, Ont., plant; Diageo said last week it was shifting some operations to the U.S.<\/a>\u00a0to improve its North American supply chain.<\/p>\n

Bottling at the Amherstburg facility intended for the U.S. market would be shifting stateside, while bottling for Canadian consumers would move to its Valleyfield, Que., location.<\/p>\n

The Ontario facility will close in February 2026, forcing almost 200 people to lose their jobs.<\/p>\n

At an unrelated press conference on Tuesday, Ford was asked about the move, which he described as \u201churting Ontario residents.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re hurting the people that work at Crown Royal,\u201d Ford said.<\/p>\n

Story continues below advertisement<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, you know something? A message to the CEO in France: You hurt my people. I\u2019m going to hurt you. You\u2019re going to feel the pain in February when these people don\u2019t have a paycheck.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\"For<\/p>\n

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Ford then proceeded to grab a bottle of Crown Royal, that he said he found at home, opened it and poured the whisky out onto the ground, leaning over the podium he was speaking at.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo this is what I think about Crown Royal. That\u2019s what they could do. But I think everyone else should do the same thing,\u201d he said, as the whisky slowly flowed out of the bottle.<\/p>\n

Ford then stepped in front of the podium saying, \u201cI wish I could get this coming out quicker.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t<\/p>\n

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Meanwhile, Diageo said it will engage with the community and find ways to support its employees through the transition, and work alongside Unifor to assist unionized workers.<\/p>\n

Story continues below advertisement<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was a difficult decision, but one that is crucial to improving the efficiency and resiliency of our supply chain network,\u201d Marsha McIntosh, Diageo\u2019s president of North America supply, said in a statement.<\/p>\n

The company said it will still maintain a \u201csignificant\u201d footprint in Canada \u2014 including its headquarters and warehouse operations in the Greater\u00a0Toronto\u00a0Area, and bottling and distillation facilities in Manitoba and Quebec.<\/p>\n

McIntosh added the company\u2019s Crown Royal products will continue to be mashed, distilled and aged at its Canadian facilities.<\/p>\n

\u2014 with files from The Canadian Press<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t&copy 2025 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ontario Premier Doug Ford dumped out a bottle of Crown Royal Tuesday in protest of the whisky maker\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":114927,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[45,49,48,29878,64621,13743,46,13404,714],"class_list":["post-114926","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-crown-royal","tag-diageo","tag-doug-ford","tag-economy","tag-ontario-politics","tag-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114926","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=114926"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114926\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/114927"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=114926"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=114926"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=114926"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}