Doug Ford’s splashy call to boycott Crown Royal could hurt Canadian workers, farmers say

Some Canadians say they will boycott Crown Royal if the company continues plans to move some distilleries to the U.S. Adrian Ghobrial reports.

Farmers in the Prairies are reminding Canadians that a boycott on Crown Royal could hurt the very people they’re trying to protect, Canadian workers.

On Tuesday in Kitchener, Ont., Premier Doug Ford made headlines as he poured out his frustrations and a bottle of Crown Royal in front of news cameras.

“This is what I think about Crown Royal,” said Ford as he poured a full bottle of the Canadian whisky onto the pavement. He continued saying, “I think everyone else should do the same thing.”

The splashy spectacle followed the news last week that Crown Royal’s parent company, Diageo, is moving its bottling facility from Amherstburg, Ont., to the United States. The Ontario plant is Amherstburg’s largest employer.

Just a short drive from the Windsor-Detroit border, generations have worked at the facility, and now 160 could be out of work by February.

Some members of provincial parliament in the Windsor area are also raising their voices, calling for a boycott and for Crown Royal to be pulled from the shelves of Ontario liquor stores.

“It was a publicity stunt in a sense, it’s good TV,” remarked Stuart Trew, a senior researcher at the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, who added that he can “see a potential boycott picking up steam, just as we saw when the United States put tariffs on us and we took (American) booze off of the shelves.”

Though some farmers say they’re concerned that if consumers stop buying Crown Royal, the spill over could drain the profits of farmers in the Prairies.

“There’s a rye field two miles away on my neighbour’s farm. In this area of southwest Manitoba, rye is a really important crop” shares Scott Day, who spoke to CTV National News from his farm field in Deloraine, Man.

Roughly 80 per cent of the rye used in Crown Royal is grown on Manitoba farms or sourced from neighbouring provinces, though Day says tariffs have already taken a bite out of the margins grain farmers rely on.

“If we lose the premium market, which is Crown Royal, then that is definitely a hit to the bottom line of rye growers,” said Day.

Trew doesn’t see it that way. Speaking from his home in Ottawa, he believes that Canadians and politicians need to have a lever to pull should large multinational companies, like Crown Royal’s parent company Diageo, try to close shop in Canada and leave Canadians without jobs.

“People are going to do what they’re going to do (when it comes to a boycott) and there’s lots of other good Canadian whisky on the shelves” that support Canadian farmers and workers, Trew said.

Diageo directly employs more than 500 people across Canada while supporting more than 9,700 jobs in different sectors from coast to coast to coast.

Diageo also has Crown Royal distilleries and bottling facilities in Gimli, Man. and Valleyfield, Que.

CTV National News asked Quebec Premier François Legault’s office if there was any concern that calls for a boycott in Ontario could hurt Quebec workers. Legault’s office declined to make the premier available and declined to answer our question.

Though in Manitoba, that province’s top politician reiterated that “Crown Royal is made in Gimli, Manitoba, that’s something Canadians should buy and continue to have access to” said a smiling Premier Wab Kinew.

Union leaders are also sharing their concerns that with one bottling facility being moved from Ontario to the United States, Diageo could eventually send its Manitoba distillery south of the border too and even use American grains to further cut costs. Though in an email to CTV National News, the company has repeated its commitment to its Canadian operations outside of its planned closure in Amherstburg, Ontario.