{"id":275660,"date":"2026-02-01T17:26:21","date_gmt":"2026-02-01T17:26:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/275660\/"},"modified":"2026-02-01T17:26:21","modified_gmt":"2026-02-01T17:26:21","slug":"diageo-confirms-ongoing-discussions-with-ford-government-to-avert-crown-royal-ban","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/275660\/","title":{"rendered":"Diageo confirms \u2018ongoing discussions\u2019 with Ford government to avert Crown Royal ban"},"content":{"rendered":"

International drinks maker Diageo says it is \u201cin ongoing discussions\u201d with the Ontario government to avert Premier Doug Ford\u2019s plan to ban Crown Royal<\/a> whisky from the shelves of the LCBO.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Ford threatened to remove the Canadian whisky from provincial liquor stores last summer after Diageo<\/a> announced it would close a bottling plant in southwestern Ontario as part of global restructuring.<\/p>\n

The premier\u2019s threat crescendoed through the fall to include removing other Diageo products, like Smirnoff vodka, from circulation unless the company agreed to keep bottling Crown Royal in the province.<\/p>\n

Ford said he would remove the products from the LCBO once the plant closes in February.<\/p>\n

In recent weeks, however, his plan has fallen foul of senior politicians in both Quebec and Manitoba, where Diageo maintains a strong presence. The company\u2019s Canadian headquarters is also located in Toronto.<\/p>\n

Story continues below advertisement<\/p>\n

Ford has increasingly indicated he may be looking to back away from the threat of banning Crown Royal, saying he\u2019s offering Diageo an \u201colive branch.\u201d He\u2019s asked the company to find other ways to replace the jobs at its bottling plant.<\/p>\n

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

\t\t\t\t\tGet daily National news<\/p>\n

Get the day’s top news, political, economic, and current affairs headlines, delivered to your inbox once a day.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf Diageo comes and says, I\u2019m going to replace these 200 workers by manufacturing bottles, doing their cartons, doing other things, more advertising, so on, so forth, and they can show me on paper,\u201d Ford said at a recent news conference.<\/a> \u201cThen, we\u2019ll sit down, and I\u2019ll be open.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now, Diageo appears to be meeting with the premier\u2019s team to try and find a way to close its facility without triggering a prohibition.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tMore on Politics
\n\t\t\tMore videos\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can confirm that Diageo\u00a0is in ongoing discussions with Premier Ford\u2019s team around strategies where Ontarians can continue to benefit from\u00a0Diageo\u2019s significant investment in the province,\u201d a spokesperson for the company told Global News.<\/p>\n

The company said it employs another 100 people in Ontario outside the bottling plant, with its headquarters and a warehousing operation both in the Greater Toronto Area.<\/p>\n

The future of the bottling plant itself \u2014 which was Ford\u2019s initial frustration \u2014 appears to be sealed.<\/p>\n

In early December 2025, Diageo struck a closure agreement with the local union, giving workers enhanced benefits when they left their jobs at the end of February.<\/p>\n

Story continues below advertisement<\/p>\n

The company then promptly put the entire property, 110 St. Arnaud St., up for sale.<\/p>\n

Diageo confirmed Friday that roughly half the workers at the facility had either found alternative employment or retired.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t&copy 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"International drinks maker Diageo says it is \u201cin ongoing discussions\u201d with the Ontario government to avert Premier Doug…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":275661,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[72,6423,6424,6422,61,60,6425,1650],"class_list":["post-275660","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-crown-royal","tag-diageo","tag-ford-government","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-ontario-politics","tag-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275660","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=275660"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275660\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/275661"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=275660"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=275660"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=275660"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}