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As our Ontario members are aware, the Ontario government decided earlier this year to accept the recommendations of the Premier’s Advisory Council, chaired by the former head of the TD Bank, Ed Clark, to begin allowing the sale of Beer and wine in grocery stores. At the outset, just to remind members, the public position of the Canadian Federation of Independent Grocers (CFIG) was and remains, that if the government decided to open up this channel for sales in grocery stores, then it should be for all grocery stores. Government, in our view, should not be in the business of picking winners and losers.
Despite our position and that of many others, the Advisory Council recommended and the Government agreed, to look at providing beer and wine in a maximum of 450 stores and to be phased in over a two year period. The licenses for stores would be made available through an auction process, and the public view of some decision makers was that ‘large supermarkets’ would be the preference.
CFIG advocated to the Advisory Council along with private discussions with Government that there needed to be a separate auction process for independents; that independents needed a fair share of the allocations for licenses that represented their market share; that size should not be the determining factor for a license; that the widely accepted North American definition of what constitutes a grocery store should be the criteria.
Subsequently, the Council and the government offered to enter into detailed negotiations around these issues, on the condition that such discussions be confidential and that CFIG sign a non-disclosure agreement.
CFIG formed a Committee of retail members to enter into this process—our Chair of CFIG, Joe Longo, along with retailers Debra Ramage, Francois Bouchard, Frank Luchetta, Jeff York, John Coppa and Joe Virgona—supported by myself and Gary Sands. All of us signed the non-disclosure agreement.
It is the view of CFIG that it was in the best interests of our members to enter into this process so that we could advocate our perspective and suggestions. Meetings have been taking place over the last few months and we can say that we are satisfied that while we still have concerns, this process is worthwhile and justifies the approach we decided to take. I would like to take this opportunity to thank those retail members for their time spent on behalf of all independents in these meetings.
While we are obviously not in a position to determine who will end up selling beer and wine in the next couple of years, we do want all of our members who have an interest in selling these products to be prepared and know what technical issues they need to address.
[box type=”note”]Our CFIG Committee will be attending a special technical briefing being conducted by the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario, next Monday, July 27th, from 9 to 11 am.We are pleased that the AGCO is offering all of our Ontario members the option of participating in this meeting by teleconference.
The dial in information is:
Toll free: 1-866-602-5461
Toronto area: 416-212-8011
Conference participant ID: 5767689
You MUST RSVP by Thursday, July 23rd. Send your confirmation directly to: david.lobo@agco.ca
[/box]As well, concurrent with this process, CFIG has initiated discussions with both the Ontario Craft Brewers and the Ontario Wine Council. They needed to learn more about independent grocers and conversely, we need to know more about them. There are many synergies between us and these independent producers and here at CFIG, we are excited about the opportunities of working with them. We hope to see some of them exhibiting at Grocery Innovations Canada (September 28 & 29, 2015 at Toronto Congress Centre).
I look forward to providing you with more information on this and a myriad of other issues at our Annual General Meeting being held on September 27th at Grocery Innovations Canada. I hope many of you will have the opportunity to attend GIC and I look forward to discussing our industry and issues with each of you.
Thomas A. Barlow
President & CEO, Canadian Federation of Independent Grocers
