LCBO too valuable for even Mike Harris Tories to privatize

Premier's former chief of staff admits world's largest public liquor retailer was 'too irresistible to let go.'

Toronto (27 June 2007) - Twelve years after Mike Harris vowed to privatize the Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO) as part of his anti-public-sector Common Sense Revolution, a senior Conservative insider now admits it was too valuable to sell off.

In a June 25 article in the National Post, Guy W. Giorno, a former Harris chief of staff, says the LCBO, the largest publicly-owned liquor retailer in the world, made too much money for even zealous Harris privatizers to wrest away from the taxpayers who own it.

"The state-owned monopoly liquor retailer ... dodged privatization, despite having been named in Mr. Harris's election platform as an asset to be sold," Giorno writes in a retrospective of the Harris years in power.

"Its aggressive revenue generation made the corporation too irresistible to let go. Never mind that part of the revenue came from non-liquor sales (magazine advertising, stemware, cooking lessons) that competed with the private sector."

Today the LCBO is making more money than ever for taxpayers, thanks in no small part to its dedicated staff of professional employees, represented by the Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU/NUPGE).

Record revenues and profits

The agency reported earlier this month that it generated a record $3.895 billion in net sales, $1.296 billion in net income and delivered an all-time high $1.275 billion dividend, not including a massive additional tax windfall, to the Ontario government in fiscal 2006-07.

Moreover, the agency said, LCBO employees are playing a responsible and much-needed role in screening customers to protect public safety and ensure that provincial liquor laws are respected and upheld.

"LCBO staff challenged a record 1.8 million people who appeared underage or intoxicated, almost 6% more than the previous year," it said. "Almost 123,000 were refused service, a 10% increase, including 82% for age-related reasons."

Giorno, a hardliner who sided with the most adamant neo-conservatives in the Harris regime, laments that Harris was not able politically to do everything he wanted, including in the area of privatization.

"Privatization could have been more aggressive, even though the sale of Ontario's Highway 407 was the largest privatization in Canadian history," he notes.

"Mr. Harris's enthusiasm for privatization was not shared by all colleagues.... The LCBO was not alone in convincing some ministers that 'conservative' principles meant government agencies should compete in the marketplace and make money to act 'more like a business.'"

OPSEU, the largest Component within the 340,000-member National Union of Public Employees and General (NUPGE), played a central role in defending the LCBO during the Harris years. The campaign has continued since the McGuinty Liberals were elected in 2003. NUPGE

More information:
? Lucky Ontario taxpayers are reaping LCBO cash bonanza