Beer Store Contract Cancellation
The government broke the Beer Store contract to allow expanded alcohol sales, costing taxpayers up to $1.4 billion.
📋 An in effect Contracts policy from May 2019 · Implemented · Well sourced
Updated · Created
"More Choice and Convenience for Consumers"
Breaking the Beer Store contract to allow alcohol sales in corner stores and grocery stores, giving Ontarians more places to buy beer and wine.
"$225M to Break a Contract, Billions in Lost Revenue"
The government paid hundreds of millions to break an existing contract, then opened alcohol sales to private retailers — shifting revenue from the publicly-owned LCBO (which returns $2.5B annually to provincial coffers) to private businesses.
- FAO calculated $225 million in direct payments to break the Beer Store contractsource
- Total fiscal impact estimated at up to $1.4 billion when accounting for lost LCBO revenuesource
- Alcohol expansion to cost province $612M to fast-track, FAO foundsource
- The 2024 LCBO strike was directly triggered by these privatization concernssource
This section represents editorial interpretation of documented evidence.
Figures are approximate, using publicly available Ontario cost data.
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