A British owned, Canadian-made whisky is at the centre of a spat between two provinces that is testing a unified “Team Canada” approach in the face of US tariffs.
It started after the whisky maker, Diageo, said it will shut down a bottling plant in Ontario to move some of it closer to US consumers.
Soon after, Ontario Premier Doug Ford angrily poured out a bottle of Crown Royal in front of reporters, and now says the product will be removed from provincial liquor stores. This has alarmed neighbouring Manitoba, where a Crown Royal distillery is a key employer in the small town of Gimli.
In a symbolic visit to the Gimli distillery on Tuesday, Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew urged Ford to “do a 180”.
Ford has not signalled he will reverse course, but in an interview with the BBC on Wednesday, Kinew said he remains “optimistic”.
“I know he’s definitely talked himself into a position, but at the same time, it’s not too late to do the right thing,” Kinew said.
The row over Crown Royal – a Canadian whisky brand that was introduced during the 1939 royal tour of Canada by King George VI – dates back to August.
That’s when Diageo first announced it would close its Amherstburg, Ontario, bottling facility after five decades of operations.
The UK-based company said last summer it planned to close the plant in February as part of a broader restructuring to improve its North American supply chain, and – to Ford’s dismay – move bottling operations closer to the US.
“Here’s what I think about Crown Royal,” he said shortly after Diageo’s announcement, before pouring an entire bottle of the whisky on the ground during a news conference and calling Diageo owners “dumb as a bag of hammers”.
He then vowed to “hurt” the firm and urged Canadians to boycott the product.
The company has said bottling operations for Canada and non-US markets are set to move to a Quebec facility southwest of Montreal.
While it has not said it will shift any operations to the US, Ford has speculated that they will.
“It’s all going to Alabama,” he said earlier this month. “Mark my words.”
Ford also vowed to remove the whisky from the shelves in Ontario, where liquor stores are operated by the province. The Liquor Board of Ontario is the largest wholesale purchaser of alcohol in North America. Crown Royal is its top selling whisky, according to Diageo.
Manitoba is now pleading with Ford to change his mind.
The Crown Royal distillery plant is a major driver for business in the town of Gimli, home to about 2,300 people, Premier Kinew said.
He warned Ford that he could inadvertently hurt Canadians with the boycott.
Diageo employs more than 500 people across Canada, the company told the BBC, including 100 in Ontario separate from those working at the Amherstburg site.
“Let’s not take action that would harm other Canadian workers, and let’s focus on being united,” Kinew said, noting that Canada “has no shortage of economic challenges” with the tariffs it is facing from the US and China.
Nicknamed “Captain Canada” by some, Ford has built a reputation for being combative against US tariffs and the job losses they have been linked to in Ontario.
Ford notably led a charge to remove US liquor from Canadian stores in retaliation for the levies – a move that has since become a trade irritant for the Trump administration.
He has often appeared on major US networks to make the case for free trade between the two countries.
More recently, an anti-tariff advertisement commissioned by the province that ran on American TV caused Trump to abruptly halt trade talks with Canada.
Still, Ford’s reaction to Diageo has been applauded by the local union, which says it represents more than 200 workers at the Amherstburg plant whose future is now uncertain.
“This is how you fight a trade war,” Unifor National President Lana Payne said in September, after Ford first called for a boycott.
But the United Food & Commercial Workers, the union representing Diageo workers outside Ontario, criticised Ford for “stunts” that it says “are directly attacking the livelihoods of hundreds of Canadian workers”.
Kinew, who enjoys the highest approval rating of any premier in Canada, said he recognised Ford was standing up for Ontarians but noted they “are Canadians, just like the people here in Gimli”.
He invited Ford to visit Manitoba to discuss the issue over a weekend ice hockey game between Toronto and Winnipeg.
“We can settle this thing and just put this episode behind us,” Kinew said.
Ford has “politely declined” the invite, Kinew told the BBC, but he noted that the two remain on good terms.
“We’ll still find a way to talk to each other, even if we’re on different sides of this issue,” he said.
