Beer boondoggle is nothing to brag about

Amazingly, Doug Ford is bringing people together over expanded alcohol sales.

- MARTIN REGG COHN

The premier has miraculously united the two opposing sides in a symbiotic debate about his latest move to bring beer and wine into corner stores.

In one corner are Ford’s Tories, cheerfully raising a glass to their supposedly life-changing achievement of boosting booze distribution.

In the other corner are the premier’s opponents, desperately raising the alarm about the allegedly life-ending disaster of increased alcohol availability.

Neither group was attracting any attention — until recently, most Ontarians were blissfully oblivious. Now, together, they are now making common cause in creating a cause célèbre.

Today, beer in corner stores is a stale idea first trotted out 40 years ago by opposition leaders looking for attention. When David Peterson and later Mike Harris became premier, they found bigger issues facing the province.

All these years later, Ford can think of nothing more important. It’s his signature issue politically (even if not personally — he’s a teetotaller).

Ahead of a possible spring election, the premier has been touring Ontario touting his obsession. But Ford’s Tories weren’t gaining traction — until researchers and antialcohol activists raised the volume by warning of more drunkenness, illness and fatalities from expanded sales.

Now, on both sides of the divide, the premier and his opponents — aided and abetted by the media — are trying to convert an anticlimax into a controversy, turning a nonstory into a big deal.