Quotulatiousness

October 26, 2011

Frank Klees demonstrates how to cross the floor without leaving your seat

Filed under: Cancon, Politics — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 09:27

Frank Klees lost the leadership race to current Ontario Progressive Conservative leader Tim Hudak. One can only assume that this ploy is his Parthian shot against Hudak and the party that failed to embrace him as leader (you can understand why they didn’t if this is his response):

In politics, there are the publicly stated reasons for doing something, and then there are the real reasons. So, when Ontario PC MPP Frank Klees says that “I felt the best way I could make my experience available to the legislature is in the role of Speaker,” the immediate response is: OK, but what is he really up to?

Problem is, that’s tough to figure. Because Dalton McGuinty’s Liberals are tied with the opposition in the number of seats held in the provincial legislature, a PC speaker would shift the balance of power and make it much harder for the government to be toppled by the Tories and NDP.

[. . .]

All of which makes Mr. Klees’ ploy even harder to understand. He has turned his back on his leader, Tim Hudak, and his party, and if you don’t believe he has done that then have a look at what his colleagues are saying, which suggests his future in the Ontario PCs is doomed. He was runner-up to Mr. Hudak in the last leadership race and a likely contender to succeed him should the Tory leader fail to win the next vote — a distinct possibility — but now he’ll always be the guy who thumbed his nose at the party when it asked him to take one for the team. Thumbed his nose, raised his finger, take your pick. Career-wise, Mr. Klees might as well have lit himself on fire. He better hope he manages, against seemingly stacked odds, to win the Speaker race.

As the last election unfolded, Tim Hudak seemed to be trying to be a carbon copy of Dalton McGuinty (the voters decided they’d prefer the genuine article to the ersatz Tory copy), which seems to have turned what looked like a certain Tory victory into a Liberal minority. I joked after the election that Hudak would certainly be the one to cross the floor to join the Liberals, because he’d effectively run as a Liberal during the campaign. I guess Klees wants to screw over the party that rejected him by getting there first.

October 20, 2011

This is why you don’t want to be a wine importer in Ontario

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Cancon, Wine — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 08:53

In the lastest issue of the Ontario Wine Review, Michael Pinkus explains the 16-point process that all independent wine and liquor importers have to follow in order to get their products into customers’ hands:

Recently I received an email from an agent giving a blow by blow account of the process of getting booze onto the shelf of our beloved Monopoly, including the hair pulling and gnashing of teeth that goes along with it.

[. . .]

“I can take samples to the Licensees — Restaurants & Hotels — and if they want to buy it this is the procedure:

1) They must purchase a minimum of one full case
2) They must pay the LCBO a 25% deposit
3) If I want to reduce the freight rate down from $100+ per case to a reasonable freight rate . . . more like $12/case then I need to gather a minimum of 20 cases in orders with specific Licensees names on them who have all paid the deposit.
4) The LCBO Private Ordering department then processes the paperwork
5) The producer would then ship the product to an LCBO pick-up location
6) We wait until the LCBO consolidates our small order into a large container with other suppliers
7) The product usually takes 4 months to arrive and then spends another month going through Lab Analysis at a cost to the supplier of $175 per product.
8) When the product finally gets released we have to hope that the original licensees that ordered it all take delivery
9) The producer gets paid 60 – 90 days after the order lands in Ontario (while the agent pays to get it out of the Private Ordering warehouse).
10) The agent then has to chase the customer for at least 90 days to get them to pay since they will likely have an excuse not to have a cheque ready upon delivery
11) We have to do this for a total a 300 cases sold within one year to EARN the privilege of getting into the Consignment warehouse.
12) Once granted consignment space . . . we can start to ship from the producer to the LCBO consignment warehouse by the pallet (~56 cases)
13) In consignment, the product can be shipped without an advanced licensee order . . . but still must sell by the case to customers.
14) The producer gets paid once ALL of the order is sold through: 120 – 240 days later.
15) If the product does not sell through within 120 days of arrival then the LCBO confiscates the remaining order, discounts it, and puts it into a sale warehouse.
16) This frees up more space back in the consignment warehouse so that they can trap more agents into over-shipping and then the LCBO can punish them for trying to treat Ontario like a free enterprise liquor system.

Oh, and if the LCBO decides to add your product to their regular merchandise, you’ll be out of luck as it’ll probably sell for less than you can (and your hotel and restaurant customers are paying for exclusivity in a lot of cases, so they’ll stop ordering through you if it’s available in the LCBO retail stores).

October 12, 2011

The “Ontario education system [is] a remarkably clean and ongoing experiment in the effects of school choice”

Filed under: Cancon, Economics, Education, Government, Liberty — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 08:22

Stephen Gordon explains why Ontario’s two parallel school systems are helping to prove the efficacy of school choice:

Public funding for the Ontario separate school system is sometimes a controversial topic for reasons I won’t get into here. But by offering one set of parents with the choice of which school they can send their children, the Ontario education system has set up a remarkably clean and ongoing experiment in the effects of school choice. Catholics have the choice of sending their elementary-school aged children either to separate or to public schools, and non-Catholics do not have this choice.

Elementary school administrators in the two systems face very different constraints:

  • Public schools have a monopoly on non-Catholics who can’t afford private school.
  • Separate schools face a clientele that always has the option of switching to the public school system.

Of the two, separate school administrators have the greater incentive to provide higher-quality education: if the separate system were widely known to be dysfunctional, it would likely disappear.

Basic economics would predict that the competitive pressures on separate school administrators would provide stronger incentives to provide better education outcomes. And that seems to be just what is happening. A recent study (pdf) by McMaster University economists Martin Dooley and Abigail Payne in collaboration with UC-Berkeley’s David Card that examine these effects finds “a statistically significant but modest-sized impact of potential competition on the growth rate of student achievement.” In a related study using similar data, a CD Howe study done by Wilfrid Laurier’s David Johnson finds that of the 13 ‘above-average’ school boards, 11 are in the separate school system, while none of the 10 ‘below-average’ school boards are.

October 9, 2011

Matt Gurney: Even the media were bored by the Ontario election

Filed under: Cancon, Government, Media, Politics — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 13:07

Did you find the recent Ontario election a big snore-fest? You’re not alone. So did the journalists covering the “festivities”:

Ontario politics is a bit dull at the best of times, but that’s unfortunate. It’s a large, populous province, with the economy to match. It’s troubled now, battered and bruised from years of mismanagement and the global economic crisis, but it’s still the centre of Canada’s economic gravity. Ontario needs to do well.

And yet, even by the usual standards for snooze-inducing Ontario partisanship, last week’s election was lame. The Liberals, under Dalton McGuinty, essentially breezed through it, never saying much. Whenever a punch was thrown — and not many were — they seemed to just bounce off the inexplicable forcefield that somehow protects Mr. McGuinty from consequences for his electoral missteps. The Tim Hudak-led PCs made the mistake of thinking that Ontarians were eager to vote them into power, and then ran a tone-deaf campaign that was only notable for its costly mistakes. The proof of that is found in the exit polling data: The Tories focused obsessively on Dalton McGuinty’s record of tax hikes, branding him “the Tax Man.” But only 15% of Ontario’s voters identified that as their main worry, meaning that the PCs’ biggest ad buy missed 85% of the electorate. And the NDP, under Andrew Horwath, mainly offered ridiculous suggestions like protectionist Buy Ontario legislation and arbitrarily freezing some consumer prices for purely political purposes. Outside of northern Ontario, not a lot of people think that’ll do much good.

The voter turnout reflected that: It’s estimated right now to have been roughly 49%, less than half of eligible voters. There’s cause to fret about that, and wonder what’s to be done, but for now, let’s just accept that rather than a sign that our democracy is broken, or doomed, it’s really what Rex Murphy said it was in his Saturday column — a deliberate rebuke of all the parties by a frustrated, insulted electorate. A pox on all their houses, as it were. If so, there was some early warning that that would be the case — even the journalists whose job it is to muster up excitement for politics had a hard time concealing their displeasure during this campaign.

I found it interesting that one of the most popular posts I’ve put up in the last several months was the one about how to refuse your ballot under Ontario’s election law. That’s certainly an indication of the relative level of voter disenchantment with the candidates and parties.

October 7, 2011

Matt Gurney: Caledonia, the election issue that wasn’t

Filed under: Cancon, Government, Politics — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 12:15

After a quick run-down of why the Tories blew the election (their bucket of snot campaign offerings that differed only in slight degree from the Liberals) Matt Gurney explains why McGuinty’s win is tragic:

It’s because of one word, a word that was barely spoken during the campaign: Caledonia.

The story is familiar, but warrants recapping: In 2006, sections of that small town were occupied by Six Nations native “protestors” (read: thugs) who were protesting the development of a new subdivision that the thugs believed encroached on their land. The native thugs terrorized local residents, driving some from their homes. Citizens, and police officers, were assaulted. Public property was destroyed.

The Ontario Provincial Police did nothing, despite the palpable shame of many of the officers who were clearly humiliated at standing by and doing nothing while the law was flagrantly broken before their eyes. It was clear to any observer that they had been ordered to simply keep the sides separated and not worry too much about such trivialities such as arresting criminals and detaining them until the Crown could lay charges. They were, as Dalton McGuinty told our editorial board last month, peacekeepers. As he said then, he wished he could give them all a blue helmet.

Nice, fluffy sentiment. Premier Dad at his best. But there’s a problem with it: The police are not peacekeepers. That’s the military’s job. The job of the police is to enforce the law. And it’s not a small difference. Our entire civilization hinges upon the public trusting the government to maintain the lawful peace and at least a rough approximation of justice. In Caledonia, the Liberals didn’t even try.

Expect to hear a lot of “analysis” from the Voter Turnout Nerds

Filed under: Cancon, Media, Politics — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 09:06

Colby Cosh gets in a pre-emptive strike against the folks for whom 100% voter participation is the only worthy result:

Get ready for the Voter Turnout Nerds: you’ll be hearing from them today. Oh yes. It would not be like them to stay silent after an Ontario election in which fewer than half of technically eligible voters appear to have cast a ballot. The Turnout Nerds don’t care who won or who lost: they care about the mathematical purity of the electoral exercise. They’ll be everywhere you look in the media, ready with their diagnoses and their nostrums and, most of all, their disapproval.

It’s not the people who have let us down, they’ll tell us; it’s the government that has let the people down, fostering apathy (most heinous of all political sins) by failing to implement Brilliant Idea X or Salutary Scheme Y. But at what point do the people, apparently so deaf to the allure of electoral reforms and renovations, stop believing the Turnout Nerd’s comforting assurances of goodwill? Nothing seems to raise the holy quantity of Turnout very effectively. Any momentary rise seems to be followed by a more precipitate plunge. Are the electorate and the Turnout Nerds headed toward a frightful mutual collision with terrible truths about democracy?

October 6, 2011

Hugh MacIntyre vainly tries to tell libertarians how to vote

Filed under: Cancon, Politics — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 12:05

Herding cats is easy compared to getting libertarians to agree to do anything as a group. He tries, nonetheless:

Deciding how to vote in today’s provincial election in Ontario has been very difficult for me. For the first time, I have been given the opportunity to vote for one of two political parties that both have important things to say and are both offering platforms that will bring true prosperity to the province of Ontario. I have had to take a serious look at both political parties and decide which one truly deserves my vote. I speak of the Freedom Party and the Libertarian Party.

I am fortunate that both political parties are running a candidate in my riding (St. Paul’s) and so I don’t have to pick between vomiting and not voting.

Both parties offer a vision of a more modest state that does not unnecessarily interfere with the lives of individuals and recognizes the free market as the primary driver of prosperity. There are some nuanced policy differences between the parties, but they are so small, that it was not enough to base my decision upon. I’m confident that Ontarians would be better off with either party in power.

I don’t have a libertarian to vote for, but we have a Freedom Party candidate. As I can’t bring myself to vote for either of the evil-twin centre-left parties (Progressive Conservatives or Liberals), or the real left (the NDP), or the enviro-fascists (the Green party), I have the choice of declining my ballot or voting for Douglas Thom (Freedom Party).

Why the LCBO isn’t like Foodland Ontario

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Cancon, Food, Government, Wine — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 09:01

Michael Pinkus tries to decide who to vote for in today’s Ontario election on the basis of who’d be the most likely to put Ontario’s wineries on an equal footing with foreign wineries in their own province:

It’s election day, and I don’t want to take up a lot of your time on a day when you should be concentrating on who to vote for. Over the past few months I have given you food for thought from Tim Hudak’s vision of the wine industry in Ontario to Andrea Horwath’s working with the LCBO option, and I heard or received nothing about the reigning Liberal party’s platform on the subject of the wine industry, I guess for them it will remain status quo. So I guess it’s up to you to decided where your loyalties lie and who you chose to believe as to what difference they’ll make, if any.

[. . .]

Part of an email I received about election promises …
“David Peterson campaigned on putting wine in corner stores in 1985 and he won — twice!
Mike Harris campaigned on putting wine in corner stores in 1995 and he won — twice!
Where are those promises in this campaign [I need to know who to vote for].”
– John

[. . .]

The LCBO affects all wineries in Ontario, but truthfully it is not the sole fault of the liquor board, they are just following their mandate to make money for the government. Two days before the election, the Grape Growers of Ontario released this plea:

“Consumer access to the wines made from Ontario grapes is a keystone issue for the future success of the industry, and unless Queen’s Park is willing to make substantive changes to the way it promotes and sells Ontario wines, the industry will continue to tread water … The domestic market share of Ontario wines is stagnant at around 39% while other winemaking regions are flourishing in their own backyard, some with market shares in excess of 90% … By making changes in the way the LCBO presents Ontario VQA wines on its shelves, how many Ontario VQA labels are available and how those wines get onto the LCBO list, accompanied by an increased, year-round promotional effort within the LCBO, the sales of Ontario’s wines will grow.”

They’re not telling you who to vote for, but they are asking you to be mindful of your vote. But I think it’s more to do with what happens after the election that counts, not the foreplay leading up to it. After the euphoria of victory has subsided we have to hold elected officials to what they promise, or pressure them to give us better and help our wineries, who are after all, tax payers themselves, yet work in a very restricted and restrictive environment. As a lover of Ontario wine you have to demand more. As the Grape Growers point out in that same plea: “We want to see provincial politicians who understand that marketing foreign wines in an agency owned by the province is like Foodland Ontario launching a promotion of Georgia peaches. It’s just not right. We can no longer afford to just sit back and watch.” Now that would be a nice change.

October 5, 2011

Ontario election: pick a poll, any poll

Filed under: Cancon, Media, Politics — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 10:55

Nobody knows what the result of Ontario’s election tomorrow will be . . . and the polls are even less effective than usual because they all report significantly different outcomes:

The latest poll by Angus Reid for the Toronto Star has the Tories ahead of the Liberals by three points, at 36 per cent and 33 per cent, respectively. The NDP has 26 per cent public support.

However, an Abacus survey for the Toronto Sun has the Liberals ahead by the same three-point margin, with the NDP at 24 per cent.

Both these numbers suggest a minority government for either party.

But, the Ipsos poll released Tuesday night show the Liberals heading for a majority, with a 10 point lead at 41 per cent. The Tories are at 31 per cent and NDP at 25 per cent.

Ipsos vice-president John Wright told 680News this poll could mean McGuinty will be heading back to Queen’s Park with a majority of seats.

The only consistent result is showing the NDP peaking at 25-26%, which may indicate the “halo effect” from the last federal election (where the NDP made impressive gains to become the official opposition) and the subsequent death of federal NDP leader Jack Layton.

Update: Kelly McParland offers an explanation for not just the current schizophrenia in the polls, but the entire election narrative:

No wonder voters are confused (or uncaring, which is more likely the case). If the MSM can’t make up its mind, how are mere voters supposed to, especially having paid the campaign no attention at all, other than by turning down the sound when some of the more offensive union-financed-but-not officially-supporting-McGuinty TV ads popped up. Personally I think the fault lies not with the electorate, which has had to vote in so many elections since 2006 that it can barely keep track of which party is breaking its promises any more, but with pundits, and especially with the Official Narrative, which was sent out from Pundit Headquarters in the midst of the summer doldrums, when most of the Ottawa pundits were either dozing in the backyard while pretending to work, or lazing at the cottage, where BlackBerry reception can be spotty. Some Ottawa golf courses also frown on the use of BlackBerries on the premises, which can add to the difficulty. Ottawa in the summer goes into a semi-permanent snooze, unlike Washington, where the war on one another never stops.

Having missed or misread the Official Narrative, pundits continued to insist that Tim Hudak was winning the race, when in fact there was no race. To have a race, you have to have voters who care in the slightest, which no one in Ontario did. This misconception arose because pundits continued to receive polls suggesting the Conservative leader was wiping the floor with the Liberals, and treated them seriously. Mr. Hudak was reported to be 10 or 20 points ahead. Big mistake. At the best of times, polls should be held with no more than two fingers at a time, and well away from the body. Polls taken during the summer, weeks before the official campaign has been declared, should be sprayed first with disinfectant, then deleted unread. I suspect Mr. Hudak never really had the lead he was given credit for, which made it inevitable that when the imaginary bulge suddenly disappeared, he would be blamed for frittering it away. Mr. McGuinty is now being hailed as a genius of the hustings, having somehow resurrected his party even as Ontarians continue trying to figure out how he got the job in the first place. This is being called “momentum.”

October 4, 2011

Ottawa Citizen: “The election was Tim Hudak’s to lose and he appears to have done so”

Filed under: Cancon, Media, Politics — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 09:35

Just a few short months ago, the Progressive Conservatives were so far ahead in the polls that holding an election seemed like a mere formality. How times change. Tim Hudak may still have a mathematical chance to lead his party into government in this week’s Ontario election, but even if he does, it’ll be a bare minority based on current polls. After a series of cringe-inducing announcements before the campaign (chain gangs? really?), the blame lies directly on Hudak and his team who decided that after all this time Ontario really just wanted another Dalton McGuinty.

The Ottawa Citizen suggests that voters should hold their noses and vote Liberal:

When Ontario voters mark their ballots on Thursday, many will be holding their noses with their other hands. There is no clear choice for who should lead this province into what will likely be an economically very difficult four years.

The election was Tim Hudak’s to lose and he appears to have done so. In July, his Progressive Conservatives were polling well in majority territory. Hudak, himself, was a pleasant surprise. He is composed and confident in person. On meeting Hudak in August, this editorial board was convinced McGuinty was in serious trouble. Hudak was clearly able to give voice to the frustration of the electorate with eight years of Liberal rule. But he needed to do more than that. He needed to offer Ontarians an alternative.

In most major policy areas there’s little to distinguish the PC platform from the Liberals’. They would raise health care and education funding by identical amounts and trim public spending in other areas to a similar degree.

For those of you who choose not to hold your noses at the polling station, if you don’t have an acceptable candidate in your riding you can still decline your ballot.

September 26, 2011

Ontario election mechanics: how to decline your ballot

Filed under: Cancon, Politics — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 09:15

If you have as uninspiring a selection of candidates running in your riding as I do, you may feel like there’s no point in voting. You do, however, have an alternative: you can effectively vote for “None of the above” if you decline your ballot:

     53. An elector who has received a ballot and returns it to the deputy returning officer declining to vote, forfeits the right to vote and the deputy returning officer shall immediately write the word “declined” upon the back of the ballot and preserve it to be returned to the returning officer and shall cause an entry to be made in the poll record that the elector declined to vote. R.S.O. 1990, c. E.6, s. 53.

A recent article in the Ottawa Citizen explains why it may matter to publicize the number of declined ballots rather than just lumping declined ballots in with blank or spoiled ones:

Ontario’s Chief Electoral Officer is neglecting to tell voters about a crucial right to choose “none of the above” in the upcoming election, says a third-party watchdog.

The right to decline a ballot is enshrined in Ontario’s election act, says Democracy Watch spokesman Duff Conacher, but is unpublicized by the agency and its head, Greg Essensa.

Whereas spoiled ballots are rejected and considered cast by “stupid” people who “don’t know how to mark an ‘X’ in the box,” says Conacher, declined ballots are interpreted much more clearly.

They are the product of active, but dissatisfied, voters.

“Let’s assume five per cent of voters are not turning up now because they don’t support the current parties and their platform,” Conacher said in an interview. “If they did turn out and that was reported on election night, you’re going to see parties fall over themselves to find out what those five per cent want. Right now they don’t because those people stay at home.”

H/T to Jon, my former virtual landlord, for providing the links.

September 25, 2011

Police “told her she had to stay tied up until they could document the scene, which she said took five hours”

Filed under: Cancon, Law — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 11:35

A new lawsuit has been filed in the Russell Williams case:

Laurie Massicotte was a neighbour of Williams in Tweed, Ontario, and was bound, stripped and sexually assaulted in September 2009.

The Toronto Star reported, the more than $7-million law suit filed on Friday claims police failed to provide her with any information about the identity of her assailant while he remained her neighbour for five months following the assault.

Massicottee told the Star, it was only after her assault that she heard another woman who lived on the street had been sexually assaulted twelve days before she was attacked.

She also said after she called the police, they told her she had to stay tied up until they could document the scene, which she said took five hours.

The police left a rape victim tied up for five hours? No wonder she’s suing the Ontario Provincial Police!

September 16, 2011

How not to run an election campaign

Filed under: Cancon, Politics — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 12:21

I’ve been referring to Progressive Conservative leader Tim Hudak as “McGuinty Lite” for a few months now. Christina Blizzard has the same nickname for him:

He wants all-day kindergarten, has no problem with Muslim prayer in schools — and won’t talk about a greater role for the private sector in health care.

Dalton McGuinty?

Nope. It’s Dalton Light — aka Tim Hudak.

The beleaguered PC leader seems stuck.

The wheels on his campaign bus just don’t have any traction.

He went into the campaign 12 points ahead in the polls. Now, nine days into the campaign, he’s fighting to stay even with McGuinty.

Yet even this, “me-too,” campaign, has been branded as “Tea Party North,” by the Liberals.

Hudak has failed Politics 101.

I have two theories to account for this (neither of which is particularly convincing). First theory: there is some really nasty surprise waiting to be sprung on the premier soon after the election, and Hudak wants to avoid being the patsy. Second theory: Hudak has become really comfortable as leader of the opposition and doesn’t want to risk becoming premier.

Either of those, or perhaps Hudak is really a sleeper agent of the Liberal Party. That might account for it . . . he’s being called a “Tea Party” candidate, but it must be homeopathic tea, as there’s no strength to it at all. It’s been diluted down to nothingness.

September 1, 2011

Toronto’s HOV lanes should become toll lanes

Filed under: Cancon, Economics — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 12:24

Like everyone else, I hate paying tolls, but my time is worth more than the toll to use the faster route. The C.D. Howe Institute is proposing converting the existing (and additional planned) high occupancy lanes on highways to toll lanes:

Car-pool lanes on Canadian highways should be converted to high-occupancy toll lanes to reduce congestion and generate revenue for municipalities, says a C.D. Howe Institute report released Wednesday.

High-occupancy toll lanes differ from high-occupancy vehicle lanes by allowing solo drivers to use them, but at a cost. The lanes require that individual drivers pay to use them, but vehicles carrying more than one passenger can drive on them for free.

“When you have bad congestion, the only way to maximize capacity of the highway is to restrict and manage access,” said Ben Dachis, author of the report. “You do that by charging people for that access.”

My commute into Toronto is pretty much at road speed until I get off the 407 ETR (a toll road) and get on the southbound 404 (a non-toll road with an HOV lane in each direction). That’s about the halfway point of my journey, but I’ll spend 75% of my travel time on the second half of my commute. The HOV lane is rarely full to capacity, and there are always “cheaters” who use the lane even though they’re alone in their vehicles (you can tell because they dart back into the regular lanes at the first hint of a police cruiser ahead).

In my own case, converting the HOV lanes on the 404 to toll would only save me 10-15 minutes, as the Don Valley Parkway does not have HOV lanes, but saving 20-25 minutes per commute would be quite worthwhile for me.

August 25, 2011

Niagara winemaker being punished for “stepping out of line”

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Cancon, Government, Law, Wine — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 09:18

Michael Pinkus who rarely lets an opportunity pass to let us know how he dislikes the LCBO (or as he sometimes calls it, the KGBO), reports on the troubles of Daniel Lenko, who appears to have provoked retaliation from the board for his criticisms:

An “order to comply” certificate was slapped on Lenko’s winery door. The order, from the Region of Niagara dated July 18, 2011, listed two areas of concern an official found after inspecting Lenko’s property on June 29, 2011. First, “Lenko must cease and desist from discharging winery production waste” (Lenko says this waste is 99% water and 1% wine) into an unapproved septic tank and then discharging that onto the ground surface. Second, Lenko is ordered to apply to the Region for a permit to construct a sewage system and, upon application, submit a detailed design plan from a qualified engineer or sewage systems designer and, upon approval, proceed to install the new system by Sept. 14, 2011. Costs for this work could get into the $50,000+ mark.

[. . .]

Then it hit me. I saw Danny’s face peering back at me from between two barrels in a May 6, 2011 article in the Toronto Star entitled “Grape Expectations frustrated by LCBO”. In the article Danny, who has never been shy about his dislike for our monopoly system and those who run it, said: “In the real world, there’d be an alternative, some place else to sell our wines, but the LCBO’s the only game in town … They say they’re the best at what they do, but how can you say that when they have no competition? What’s wrong with having a VQA store?” Another prominent quote in the article is not attributed to anyone, but with Danny’s face front and centre at the top it is easy for any reader to make an inference (rightly or wrongly): “Would I like to get more of my product on the shelves? Sure. But why would I provoke an 800-pound gorilla? There’s just no way to win that battle.”

[. . .]

The aforementioned picture at the top of the article had a caption that read: “Daniel Lenko started his winery in 1999 using the grapes from the vines that his father planted in Beamsville in the Niagara Wine Region, in 1959. Lenko sells his wines from the kitchen of a small house on the vineyard which he also uses as a wine testing lab and an office.” Now what do you think it take for the LCBO to get on the horn with the AGCO (Alcohol Gaming Commision Ontario — who “oversee” the wineries) or even a local official and say to them: “maybe you’ll want to look into this Lenko guy a little harder” he is after all selling wine from his kitchen and a kitchen might not be considered a suitable place to be selling alcohol from. I think someone is making an example of Danny.

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