{"id":26026,"date":"2014-05-29T09:03:17","date_gmt":"2014-05-29T14:03:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=26026"},"modified":"2014-05-29T09:04:56","modified_gmt":"2014-05-29T14:04:56","slug":"the-pairs-perfectly-campaign","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2014\/05\/29\/the-pairs-perfectly-campaign\/","title":{"rendered":"The “Pairs Perfectly” campaign"},"content":{"rendered":"

Just as the Ontario election writ was dropped, the small wineries of Ontario started pushing the Pairs Perfectly<\/a> campaign, to move the province toward a more mature wine retailing model (like British Columbia’s). While I’d prefer a full privatization model (like Alberta’s), at least the move to allowing some private wine stores would be an improvement. Despite the quick work to launch the campaign, Michael Pinkus<\/a> says it’s already being forgotten on the hustings:<\/p>\n

Ontario is deep into an election campaign and the best thing done so far is a little initiative from the Wine Council called \u201cPairs Perfectly\u201d. They\u2019ve backed it with radio and television promos and in truth they make a lot of sense. Ontario is one of the only provinces not to have some sort of private system in place, either along with their provincial monopoly (a la<\/em> British Columbia) or fully privatized (a la<\/em> Alberta). This initiative seemed to be already formed and waiting in the wings: no sooner had an election been called than the \u201cPairs Perfectly\u201d slogan was in my inbox (with its twitter handle @PairsPerfectly, hashtag #PairsPerfectly and website PairsPerfectly.com), articles were written to explain the notion, social media seemed abuzz from wineries to writers to the average-Joe, all were tweeting, re-tweeting, blogging, tumbling, gramming, hooting, hollering, casting, accosting and I initially thought, \u201cWow, the buzz is really out there, this just might have legs, or at least more legs that that \u2018My Wine Shop\u2019 that seemed to go nowhere.\u201d<\/p>\n

But 6 weeks is a long time in the political realm, just ask Rob Ford, so much can happen over the course of 6 weeks that can turn the tide on a well-thought-out, well-organized plan of attack. Instead of the Ontario booze media jumping whole hog onto the initiative and writing piece after piece after piece about the benefits of privatization to keep the idea in our collective consciousness, a new issue has come along to polarize: the VQA, which I have repeatedly said is a sham of a system, most notably because of its tasting panel<\/a>. Now there\u2019s a new horse to ride, a newer and shinier issue to get all worked up about. The VQA is easy pickings because it is so wrong, crushes creativity and stymies\u2019 our winemakers making them think \u201cwill this pass VQA\u201d. Every winery has come into conflict with it at least once in its existence and it needs an overhaul (radical? Maybe not, but definitely a big tweak).<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

I believe this: Ontario is a mess and is destined to remain that way long after this election season has been put to bed. We already know the Liberals position on privatization of any sort (over their dead body); the NDP seem in lockstep with the Liberals train of thought because it would disrupt union jobs. And the Conservatives, before the campaign the only party willing to talk privatization, have somehow gone mute about the whole issue \u2013 as if someone told them not to rock the boat; which makes them the wild card. But if history shows us anything it\u2019s doubtful it\u2019ll get past committee if it ever does come up.<\/p>\n

And don\u2019t even get me started on the asinine things happening on the beer side of the ledger. The Beer Store\u2019s cockamamie campaign against corner stores carrying the product that they have a duopoly to sell (with the LCBO), is as misguided and ill-conceived as any I can think of. Does beer not also get sold in corner stores in other provinces? Are all those owners corrupt-minor-sellers? It seems to have galvanized the public against them; especially when people find out they aren\u2019t government controlled; which a vast majority of the province was under the false notion it was. This also took focus away from the larger issue of an open and freer market for all in the alcohol industry (craft brewers, craft winemakers, etc.)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Just as the Ontario election writ was dropped, the small wineries of Ontario started pushing the Pairs Perfectly campaign, to move the province toward a more mature wine retailing model (like British Columbia’s). While I’d prefer a full privatization model (like Alberta’s), at least the move to allowing some private wine stores would be an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,131],"tags":[188,395,87,394,142],"class_list":["post-26026","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cancon","category-wine","tag-electionwatch","tag-lcbo","tag-ontario","tag-privatization","tag-vqa"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-6LM","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26026","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26026"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26026\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26029,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26026\/revisions\/26029"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26026"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26026"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26026"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}