Dear Kathy, Bill and Debbie,
As thousands of tons of Ontario grapes are thrown to the ground
to rot the Government of Ontario throws a bone for starving dog grape
growers and farm based wineries to fight over. The bone is barely enough to
feed a few, but hundreds will snarl and bite fighting to get a mouthful.
The cowardice of the GGO to confront the government on the real
issue of market access for 100% Ontario wine is to be expected from a
chained dog that heels to the jerk of its owner, the Government of Ontario.
Sit, beg, roll over, here is another bone for you to gnaw on but the meat
goes somewhere else.
The WCO is similarly chained to the Government of Ontario in
their pact to protect the current monopoly (Triopoly) of the LCBO, Vincor
and Andre's. They have three chains around their neck if you count the
Cellared in Canada giants' veto power at WCO. Their mandate is to market
imported and blended wines under the halo effect of VQA wines and the happy
faces of Ontario grape growers slowly starving to death but too proud to
show it on their faces.
The all time award for hypocrisy goes to the Government of
Ontario for pillaging the grape and wine industry wearing the hood of the
Green Belt to make it seem benign, greenwashing the economic bloodbath
taking place in wine country. Farmers and farm wineries are going into debt
review and bankruptcy and fire sale mode but no one dares speak the truth at
the peril of losing the work of a lifetime or perhaps the work of multiple
generations of lifetimes.
The government's cowardice to face the LCBO unions is
monumental. Their self-serving greed to build and maintain an overpaid and
under worked bureaucracy only mirrors the total lack of integrity that has
become the corporate culture of both the LCBO and Government of Ontario.
Ontario grapes rotting on the ground while the shelves are
filled with imported and imported/blended wines; shame on us all for not
taking to the streets with pick axes and WD-40 ing up the guillotines.
There is a solution, however, that is obvious.
Why not let the government create a monopoly to retail cars to
the public, making sure that only foreign cars are displayed on the car lot.
After all, cars are the most dangerous product on the market, they kill
thousands a year. Only the Car Control Board of Ontario (CCBO) is qualified
to sell this dangerous product to the public. Once they have pigged out at
this new trough, perhaps the right of Canadian farmers to take their product
to market guaranteed by the British North America Act could be reinstated.
All I want to do is grow grapes, make wine, take it to market
and make a living from the land. The only roadblock is the LCBO and the
Government of Ontario and their co-opted industry associations purportedly
representing our interests.
Steve Kocsis
Chimo! www.deantudor.com
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