Doug Ford's paper-bag order caught LCBO execs by surprise
CBC
Ontario Premier Doug Ford's order to the LCBO to bring back paper bags caught the provincial liquor store's senior executives off guard and sent its management scrambling to procure new supply, documents obtained by Radio-Canada reveal.
Ford's move came on a Sunday night in April, some seven months after the LCBO had stopped offering paper bags at its 660 retail stores across the province.
Ford told CEO George Soleas to "take immediate steps to reverse the decision" in an email sent just before 7 p.m. on April 7, according to documents obtained through Ontario's freedom of information laws.
Within hours, Soleas informed members of the LCBO's senior management team and expressed his surprise in messages to the province's deputy minister of finance and the Crown corporation's board of directors.
"Last night, I was surprised to receive a letter from Premier Ford directing LCBO to take immediate steps to reverse the decision to remove paper bags from our retail locations," Soleas said in an email to board members at 9 a.m. on April 8.
"We were confident in making this move — which was approved by the government," he added.
"Not sure you are in the loop with this one!" Soleas said in a separate email forwarding Ford's letter to the top bureaucrat in Ontario's Ministry of Finance, deputy minister Greg Orencsak.
The LCBO first announced in April 2023 that it planned to eliminate paper bags, saying the move would save some 135 million paper bags annually and divert more than 2,600 tonnes of waste from landfills.
Ford's sudden order to reverse the move cited the cost to customers of providing their own bags. "At a time when many Ontario families are already struggling to make ends meet, every additional expense counts," the premier wrote in his letter to Soleas.
Internal emails obtained by Radio-Canada reveal how the LCBO's senior staff reacted to word of Ford's move and a Toronto Sun article that broke the news publicly the next morning.
"Don't understand, you get a letter yesterday but it is already in The Sun??" the LCBO's chief information officer, Geoff Cronin, wrote to Soleas in one message sent at 7:25 a.m. on April 8.
"Toronto Sun has already picked up on this so we are going to be asked to move quickly. We will likely need to provide direction to the stores this AM," wrote the LCBO's chief retail officer, John Summers, at 7:11 a.m. the same day.
"We are likely going to have to do some quick procurement on new bags. We may still have some excess in some stores but not enough to cover the province," Summers added in another email two minutes later.
The documents show the LCBO had terminated its contract with its previous supplier when it stopped offering the bags last year. Just two weeks after Ford's order, the Crown corporation posted a call for bids for a new supplier. The deadline to bid was originally scheduled for May 27, but has been extended to June 17.
Members of CUPE Local 456, which represents city workers in Melville, Sask., have voted in favour of job action due to wage disputes and high employee turnover.
Some schools in Queens and Prince counties are starting one hour later Wednesday due to road conditions following yesterday's storm.
Edmonton's city auditor has made eight recommendations to improve the effectiveness of the city's paratransit service, saying clients who rely on the service will benefit from the changes.
Electric bus manufacturers hit hard by pandemic-era supply chain chaos could soon find themselves pummelled by a trade war.
A workshop will be held Wednesday evening to help give Windsor residents the necessary tools on how to interact with people experiencing homelessness.
Buy Canadian — that's the message being pushed across the country. But on the other end of the movement, some small business owners in Calgary who feel the pressure to pivot to Canadian products say that isn't as easy as it sounds.
Inside a community centre in Nova Scotia's Annapolis Valley, poster board collages display photos of a young woman with a big smile on her face. She's shown with her arms wrapped around family members, being silly in selfies with friends, standing proud in a high school graduation gown.
As an outreach worker helping people with life-limiting illnesses in Thunder Bay, Ont., Julie Diner says she doesn't spend much time in the office.
A swift response by flight attendants, crews and emergency workers was among the key reasons why no one died in Monday's plane crash at Toronto's Pearson International Airport, an expert and officials say.
Health care, homelessness and the threat of U.S. tariffs were among the top issues addressed by Cambridge candidates as part of a panel discussion on CBC Kitchener-Waterloo's The Morning Edition on Tuesday.
U.S. president Donald Trump's tariff threats and digs at Canadian sovereignty are forcing Canadian politicians of all stripes to adapt, and in Quebec, the opposition Parti Québécois is facing a particularly tough challenge.
Rough weather on Tuesday forced salvage specialists to abandon their inspection of a cargo ship that ran aground in a rocky cove along Newfoundland's west coast over the weekend.
Premier Tim Houston's government is using its supermajority in the legislature to give itself the power to fire the auditor general without cause and make reports from the office private.