‘They will feel the pain’: Ford threatens to clear U.S. alcohol from LCBO shelves if Trump imposes tariffs

Ontario Premier Doug Ford speaks at the Rural Ontario Municipal Association Conference in Toronto on Jan. 20, 2025.

Kentucky bourbon, Tennessee whiskey, and a range of other American-made booze will vanish from LCBO stores if U.S. President Donald Trump imposes a blanket tariff on Canadian goods, Ontario Premier Doug Ford threatened Monday.

“I’ve sent a direction to the LCBO, if these tariffs come, to clear off every bit of U.S. alcohol off the shelves,” Ford said, noting that the Crown corporation is the largest alcohol purchaser in the world.

“They will feel the pain. I will make sure I communicate this to our other premiers that they should be following suit.”

Trump retook the Oval Office on Monday afternoon and has long threatened to introduce a 25 per cent tariff on all Canadian and Mexican imports, unless both countries secure their borders against illegal migrants and drugs, on the first day of his administration.

However, reports from The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, citing White House sources, suggest that the incoming commander-in-chief will not impose those sanctions today.

Last week, sources confirmed to CTV News that Canada is ready to impose retaliatory tariffs on consumer goods, like Kentucky bourbon and Florida orange juice, if Trump follows through on his threat.

Ford has said his government will support those measures and others, along with what he described Sunday as “additional retaliatory measures” at a provincial level, should they be required. It’s unclear what those additional measures include, but the province has previously mused taxing American-made alcohol and cutting off Ontario power to 1.5 million homes south of the border.

Canada previously imposed a tariff on U.S. bourbon and other goods in 2018 in response to Trump’s tax on Canadian steel and aluminum. The then president lifted that tariff in 2019, only to reimpose it briefly, and lift it again in 2020.

Ford recalled that exchange while delivering his remarks on Monday at the Rural Ontario Municipal Association Conference in Toronto.

“I talked to the great governor of Kentucky. And I remember in the last tariffs, we threw on the bourbon. First thing out of his mouth is ‘don’t touch my bourbon,’” Ford said.

“And I said, ‘Governor’ – and that’s a serious business down there, when you [mess] with their bourbon. It’s like messing with our LCBO – I said, ‘You know governor, you’ve gotta talk to your president, because the first thing we’re doing: we’re getting your bourbon.”

Ford’s PCs leading Crombie’s Liberals by nine points: poll

Ontario’s next scheduled election is still more than a year away, but new polling shows Ford’s Progressive Conservatives maintain a nine-point lead over Bonnie Crombie’s Liberals.

Liaison Strategies released the findings of its poll on Monday. It found that if a provincial election were held today 41 per cent of decided and leaning voters would cast their ballot for the PCs.

Ford has not yet ruled out holding an early election before the set date of June 2025, and said last week that if the government is forced to spend cash to stimulate the economy should Trump’s tariffs come to pass, he would need to seek a new mandate from voters.

“I think, if it comes to it, and we have to spend tens of billions of dollars, we go to the people. Let the people decide,” he said at the time, later suggesting that the tariffs could cost 500,000 Ontario jobs.

Meanwhile, the Liberals’ support climbed to 32 per cent, a level the polling company says it hasn’t seen since it started the outreach in 2024.

“This marks a 2-point increase from last week and a 5-point rise since the start of the year,” David Valentin, principal at Liaison Strategies, said in a news release. ”Interestingly, this growth isn’t coming at the expense of the PCs but rather from the smaller parties and the Ontario NDP.”

Support for the Ontario NDP currently sits at 19 per cent, a two-point drop week-over-week.

The undecided voter rate, according to the poll, is at 26 per cent, which Valentin said is likely to drop if and when an election call is made.

The poll surveyed close to 1,200 Ontario voters between Jan. 15 and 16. The margin of error is plus or minus 2.83 per cent, 19 times out of 20.