Don’t hurt Manitoba jobs with Crown Royal boycott: Ontario voters No appetite for hurting other provinces during U.S. trade war, poll shows By: Kevin Rollason Posted: 7:03 PM CST Tuesday, Jan. 27, 2026

Manitoba may have an unlikely ally in its dispute with Ontario’s premier over a promised boycott against Crown Royal whisky — Ontario voters.

A random poll conducted of 1,000 Ontarians by Liaison Strategies, between Jan. 19 and 21, found while 69 per cent believe it is OK for Ontario Premier Doug Ford to pull booze from the province’s liquor store shelves during job-related disputes, 63 per cent said it was also important to make sure he avoids harming jobs in Manitoba and other provinces.

Liaison president David Valentin said while Ford has “definitely tapped into the right sentiment” with his decision to use the Liquor Control Board of Ontario as leverage in a dispute, that changes if voters believe another province will be hurt.

“The same voters are also drawing a boundary around how that leverage should be used,” Valentin said in a statement on Tuesday.

“There isn’t an appetite for punishing other provinces. Most Ontarians are saying: fight for Ontario jobs, while at the same time they want harm to be minimized to the rest of Team Canada.”

The poll also found 36 per cent said it is “very important” to avoid harm to Manitoba, while 27 per cent said it was “somewhat important.”

Ford said he would remove Manitoba-made Crown Royal from Ontario shelves next month because he believes the whisky’s parent company, Diageo, is closing its bottling plant in Amherstburg, Ont., in February and moving the facility’s 200 jobs to the United States.

The United Kingdom-based Diageo confirmed it is building a new manufacturing plant in Alabama and will continue to bottle Crown Royal for Canadian and non-U.S. export markets at its existing facility in Quebec.

Diageo has said it will keep its Gimli distillery open, which employs about 76 people, and retain its headquarters and warehouse operations in the Toronto area.

Premier Wab Kinew has urged Ford multiple times to back down on the boycott threat.

“Most Ontarians are saying: fight for Ontario jobs, while at the same time they want harm to be minimized to the rest of Team Canada.”

Chuck Davidson, president and CEO of the Manitoba Chambers of Commerce, said consumers should be able to make up their own minds.

“If consumers are upset about that, they are going to make decisions by not purchasing — it is as simple as that,” Davidson said. “It doesn’t need government taking these kinds of steps. If there’s a problem, I’d much rather cooler heads prevail about it and have a conversation.”

Davidson also called the recent discourse between Manitoba and Ontario a step backwards after moves by the federal and provincial governments to remove trade and service barriers between provinces.

“It’s a big thing we’ve been pushing for, reducing internal trade barriers, to make it easier for companies to do business within their own country,” he said.

“I can understand the challenges obviously, with the closure of a bottling facility in Ontario and the premiers being very protectionist of their own provinces, but in the grand scheme, at this point in time we are trying to take an approach in Canada of supporting each other. We all seem to have a common enemy just south of the border that we’re focused on.”

A longtime Conservative MP is calling on the Prime Minister to step in.

James Bezan, who represents Selkirk-Interlake-Eastman — the riding where Gimli’s distillery is located, said he hopes Prime Minister Mark Carney and Internal Trade Minister Dominic LeBlanc will resolve the issue during premier meetings this week in Ottawa.

“I’m calling on them to actually finally take action and ensure that these types of trade disputes between provinces are not allowed to happen to hurt Canadian jobs, especially at this precarious time,” said Bezan, Manitoba’s most senior MP.

Bezan has spoken in the House of Commons about the connection between Gimli and Crown Royal.

“Every single drop is made with pure Interlake water — that is actually the secret ingredient in why Crown Royal tastes the way it does… and then there is also our great Manitoba grown grains, from the rye to the corn to the barley.”

University of Manitoba political studies Prof. Christopher Adams said it remains to be seen if a boycott can be avoided.

“I don’t know how this will unfold, but maybe the feds should step in to say, remember, we need inter-provincial trade,” Adams said.

The Liaison poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 per cent, 19 times out of 20.

kevin.rollason@freepress.mb.ca