{"id":177607,"date":"2026-08-21T21:55:06","date_gmt":"2026-08-21T21:55:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/177607\/"},"modified":"2026-08-21T21:55:06","modified_gmt":"2026-08-21T21:55:06","slug":"cracks-in-team-canada-as-some-premiers-openly-question-booze-boycott-strategy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/177607\/","title":{"rendered":"Cracks in Team Canada as some premiers openly question booze boycott strategy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

A paper notice lists the removal of bottles of U.S. alcohol from the shelves of an LCBO store in Toronto, on March 4, 2025.Arlyn McAdorey\/Reuters<\/p>\n

As the clock ticked on a trade deal to avert U.S. President Donald Trump\u2019s threat of a new round of punishing tariffs<\/a>, clear cracks between Canada\u2019s premiers and Prime Minister Mark Carney started to show. <\/p>\n

As of Friday afternoon, Ontario Premier Doug Ford \u2013 normally vocal about the need to stand up to Mr. Trump \u2013 had been completely silent on whether he will accede to a request from Mr. Carney to end the province\u2019s ban on the sale of U.S. alcohol at its liquor stores. <\/p>\n

The premiers routinely refer to themselves as a unified \u201cTeam Canada,\u201d and in recent weeks Mr. Ford and the rest had mostly avoided criticizing Mr. Carney or his negotiators as they rolled up their sleeves in Washington. <\/p>\n

If U.S. booze returns, will Canadians buy it or \u2018let it rot\u2019?<\/a><\/p>\n

But in a conference call on Wednesday about the talks, Mr. Carney asked premiers to drop their retaliatory bans<\/a> on U.S. alcohol sales at provincial liquor outlets, even while any potential reduction of the tariffs on steel, aluminum, autos and lumber remained the subject of down-to-the-wire discussion. <\/p>\n

The reception for the idea from certain premiers ranged from chilled to muted.<\/p>\n

B.C. Premier David Eby \u2013 who was on vacation with poor cell reception and did not dial into the call with the Prime Minister \u2013 had not indicated whether his province would comply. (Alberta and Saskatchewan long ago dropped bans on U.S. booze sales.)<\/p>\n

Manitoba\u2019s Wab Kinew, in scrappy comments to reporters in Winnipeg on Thursday, suggested he would consider the Prime Minister\u2019s request, which he described as \u201ca step before begging.\u201d <\/p>\n

But he encouraged consumers not to buy U.S.-made alcohol if it did return to shelves. He said he believed Canada should instead \u201ckeep fighting,\u201d and that the unpopular Mr. Trump was \u201cweak,\u201d facing midterm elections in a few months. Quebec Premier Christine Fr\u00e9chette said she could restore U.S. booze sales, but only if the deal turned out to be positive for Quebec.<\/p>\n

Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe suggested the booze climbdown was needed for the talks to advance. And Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Tony Wakeham said on Thursday that all the premiers had agreed to stand down \u201cas a sign of good faith.\u201d<\/p>\n

Proposed U.S.-Canada trade deal would introduce steel quota with lower 25% tariff, sources say<\/a><\/p>\n

Mr. Ford has in the past called for tougher \u201cdollar-for-dollar\u201d responses to the U.S. tariffs hammering his province, home to most of the country\u2019s auto industry. And the Ontario Premier presides over the Liquor Control Board of Ontario, which is one of the largest buyers of alcohol in the world and normally brings in nearly $1-billion worth of U.S. booze a year. <\/p>\n

But he has stood down on trade retaliation before, dropping a March, 2025, surcharge on electricity exports to the U.S. just a day after its imposition had attracted the ire of Mr. Trump.<\/p>\n

Veteran trade lawyer Lawrence Herman, a senior fellow with the C.D. Howe Institute, said he predicts all the premiers will swallow their pride and restore U.S. booze to their liquor-store shelves. But Mr. Herman said the provinces\u2019 booze bans may have indeed been useful at the bargaining table.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn some ways, that\u2019s a strength on our side, because we can say, look, this deal isn\u2019t going to get the provinces on side,\u201d Mr. Herman said. \u201c … My sense is, if we have gone about as far as we can go on the tariff side, there is not much that can be done by holding out on alcohol.\u201d<\/p>\n

Carlo Dade, director of the New North America Initiative at the University of Calgary\u2019s school of public policy, argued that having the premiers back down and drop their booze bans is not much of a concession \u2013 as many Canadian consumers will likely keep away from U.S. products anyway.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a bit of theatre with the Americans. It looks like we made a great concession. But what concession are we making?\u201d he said, noting that even after Alberta and Saskatchewan put U.S. alcohol back on the shelves, sales are way down. \u201cWe\u2019ve had a ban without having a ban. So there is no cost, except in ego. So we need to convince Eby, Ford and Kinew to lose the ego, because there is no cost.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: A paper notice lists the removal of bottles of U.S. alcohol from the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":177608,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[164,224,238,214,212,239,17,211,230,231,227,213,210,235,171,234,143,222,249,215,216,229,225,226,219,240,220,244,245,247,242,246,94,243,217,142,233,113,232,241,223,236,237,228,221,218,248],"class_list":["post-177607","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-canada","tag-alberta","tag-arts-news","tag-bc","tag-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news-video","tag-british-columbia","tag-canada","tag-canada-news","tag-canada-sports","tag-canada-sports-news","tag-canada-trafficcanada-weather","tag-canadian-breaking-news","tag-canadian-news","tag-economy","tag-education","tag-environment","tag-federal-government","tag-foreign-news","tag-globe-and-mail","tag-globe-and-mail-breaking-news","tag-globe-and-mail-canada-news","tag-government","tag-life-news","tag-lifestyle","tag-local-news","tag-manitoba","tag-national-news","tag-new-brunswick","tag-newfoundland-and-labrador","tag-northwest-territories","tag-nova-scotia","tag-nunavut","tag-ontario","tag-pei","tag-photos","tag-political-news","tag-political-opinion","tag-politics","tag-politics-news","tag-quebec","tag-sports-news","tag-technology","tag-travel","tag-trudeau","tag-us-news","tag-world-news","tag-yukon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177607","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=177607"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177607\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/177608"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=177607"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=177607"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=177607"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}