{"id":298627,"date":"2026-02-15T01:16:22","date_gmt":"2026-02-15T01:16:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/298627\/"},"modified":"2026-02-15T01:16:22","modified_gmt":"2026-02-15T01:16:22","slug":"ford-backs-down-on-crown-royal-ban-after-reaching-agreement-with-diageo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/298627\/","title":{"rendered":"Ford backs down on Crown Royal ban after reaching agreement with Diageo"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ontario Premier Doug Ford is backing down from his threat to remove Crown Royal<\/a> from the shelves of the LCBO after the government said it reached a $23-million agreement with the company that includes new investment but won\u2019t replace the jobs lost.<\/p>\n

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Months after Ford poured out a bottle of Crown Royal in protest of the company\u2019s decision to shut down a bottling plant in Amherstburg, Ont., impacting roughly 200 jobs, the government said the two sides came to an agreement to avoid the upcoming escalation.<\/p>\n

Ford said the $23 million, including everything from ingredient purchases to local economic development investments and advertising, is made up of new investments that \u201cOntario would not otherwise have seen\u201d if it had not threatened the prohibition.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy standing firm in our plan to protect Ontario workers, we\u2019ve secured nearly $23 million in investments,\u201d Ford said in a statement. \u201cThese investments will help keep Ontario workers on the job, strengthen provincial supply chains and support the local community in Amherstburg and the surrounding area.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The agreement, however, made no mention of the workers at the Amherstburg facility who are set to leave the facility when it shuts its doors at the end of February. While Ford had expressed hope that Diageo would replace the positions there, neither the government nor the company offered employment-related details.<\/p>\n

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Through the fall months, Ford\u2019s threat against Diageo intensified. At one point, he suggested he would ban other products made by the international drinks company, like Smirnoff vodka.<\/p>\n

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But pressure from across Canada began to mount at the end of the year, as political leaders in Quebec and Manitoba worried about what a ban on Crown Royal would do to the Diageo operations still employing people in their provinces.<\/p>\n

Quebec\u2019s finance minister said Ford\u2019s plan to ban the whisky was misguided, while Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew mounted a campaign to get Ontario to back down. He visited a Crown Royal facility in his province and posted a video to social media, encouraging Ford to reconsider.<\/p>\n

Ontario\u2019s tone gradually softened and Ford began referencing an \u201colive branch\u201d he said he was offering to Diageo. He moved from talking exclusively about the plant that was set to close to suggesting the jobs could be replaced in other ways.<\/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. Then, we\u2019ll sit down, and I\u2019ll be open,\u201d he said in January. \u201cI\u2019m pretty easygoing.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t2:14
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tFord says he offered Crown Royal company an \u2018olive branch\u2019 on LCBO boycott\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

The agreement the government eventually reached with Diageo will see various spending commitments across the province. The plan includes money for a spirit maker and read-to-drink beverage makers.<\/p>\n

Just over 20 per cent of the commitment is for \u201cOntario-based marketing and promotion.\u201d<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for Diageo would not confirm what its advertising budget was in Ontario before the agreement, but thanked the government for backing down on its proposed ban.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe thank Premier Ford and his team for their exceptional leadership and collaboration in reaching this resolution,\u201d they wrote in a statement.<\/p>\n

\u201cDiageo is pleased that Crown Royal, an iconic Canadian Whisky, will remain on the shelves of the LCBO, and we remain committed to Ontario through our significant investment in the province.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\t&copy 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ontario Premier Doug Ford is backing down from his threat to remove Crown Royal from the shelves of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":298628,"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-298627","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\/298627","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=298627"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298627\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/298628"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=298627"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=298627"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=298627"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}