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The Ontario government is pushing ahead with a plan to put liquor kiosks in grocery stores, a bid to shake up the way alcohol is sold in the province and head off the champions of privatization ahead of a possible spring election.

The Liberals move also comes as the party casts about for any good news amid the gas-plant scandal, in which Premier Kathleen Wynne looks set for a legal showdown with Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Hudak and new revelations that the boyfriend of a Grit staffer was hired as an IT expert on the taxpayers dime.

Finance Minister Charles Sousa is expected to unveil a request for proposals Tuesday that will ask grocery stores to sign up to have an LCBO Express store placed in them, a government source said. The government will then select a handful of stores to receive the kiosks.

The tentative step toward liberalizing liquor sales does not go as far as Quebec, which has long allowed beer and wine to be sold in grocery and convenience stores.

Alberta has an entirely privatized liquor retail system and British Columbia, which has a hybrid model, is set to allow liquor in grocery stores in the near future.

The idea, first announced in 2012, follows several similar moves from the LCBO, which has in recent years put liquor stores adjacent to supermarkets. This, however, would be another step at mixing the government liquor monopoly with private retail. The kiosks will still be owned and run by the LCBO, but will occupy space in the middle of grocery stores.

Mr. Hudaks Tories have stirred the age-old privatization debate over the past year, putting out a policy paper that envisages selling off all or part of the LCBO. Proponents of privatization argue that introducing competition into the market would lead to more liquor stores, better selection and service. Alberta, for instance, has more than 1,100 liquor stores, only slightly fewer than the combined total of LCBOs and Beer Stores, in a province less than a third the size of Ontario. Unlike the LCBO, many of the prairie provinces liquor stores keep late hours.

The Liberals have repeatedly vowed not to privatize liquor sales in large part because of the money the LCBO funnels into government coffers.

With the Grits holding only a minority of seats in the legislature, they must secure the support of at least one other party to pass a budget and avoid a spring election. In the event of a vote, the promise of more accessible liquor may be a method to deflect the Tories privatization promises.

The kiosk announcement is also coming down unexpectedly after several days that saw Queens Park dominated by explosive developments in the gas-plant scandal. Last week, an unsealed police document revealed that investigators believe former premier Dalton McGuintys chief of staff brought in outside IT expert Peter Faist to wipe clean government computers.

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Liberals push forward with plan to sell liquor in grocery stores

OTTAWA Plans by the Ontario Liberals to spend billions of dollars renovating schools and partnering with new businesses that are moving to the province were revealed by the opposition Progressive Conservatives on Tuesday, revealing in advance a month of announcements leading up to a May 1 budget.

The spending plans, which also include numerous smaller programs and projects, are contained in a communications plan apparently leaked to the Tories. It describes 39 events over the next month, at various stages of planning, in which ministers and MPPs would announce details about one program after another. If the document is accurate, the actual budget presentation in the legislature by Finance Minister Charles Sousa would be just a formality at the end of the process.

The document was released on the morning of April Fools Day, but it appears genuine.

The biggest tickets are a $2-billion capital investment to support (1) school consolidations to reduce underused space and (2) repair and school maintenance (sic), and a new $2.5B 10-year Jobs and Prosperity Fund to attract significant business investments.

The document also notes a $300-million plan to provide support to front-line public sector workers who deliver important services to most vulnerable and an investment of close to $730M over three years to address critical pressures and support long-term transformation of developmental services (and significantly reduce wait-lists*). Its not clear to what the asterisk refers.

Many of the measures are clearly designed to attract New Democratic Party support for the Liberals budget, or at least to give the Liberals a way to attack New Democrats if they trigger an election by combining with the Tories to vote it down. But the communications plan also says the government wants to end an unpopular charge put on electricity customers bills to pay off the massive debt of the long-broken-up Ontario Hydro monopoly, which the Tories have demanded for years.

And, without giving details, the document says Premier Kathleen Wynne would hold a news conference April 14 to explain how she intends to fund multibillion-dollar transit and road projects without, as she has previously promised, raising either the provincial sales tax or gas taxes.

The individual policies can best be summed up as more of the same, Tory Leader Tim Hudak said in a written statement that went out along with the leaked communications plan. He derided it as a $5.7-billion spending spree (a figure derived by adding up all the numbers in the plan, though much of that would be spent over many years and its possible some of it is money the government would have spent anyway) that casts doubt on Liberal promises to shrink the provinces budget deficit.

In the legislature immediately after the release which coincided with the beginning of question period Tuesday morning Wynne said that of course the government has a communications plan to explain whats in the budget.

Whats unusual is for the opposition to know whats coming so far in advance. The leaks main value may be to give the opposition plenty of time to plan its responses to the governments plan, or to force the Liberals to scramble their plans at the last minute so they can regain the element of surprise.

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Provincial Tories blow lid off Liberals budget plans

The Ontario government is pushing ahead with a plan to put liquor kiosks in grocery stores, a bid to shake up the way alcohol is sold in the province and head off the champions of privatization ahead of a possible spring election.

The Liberals move also comes as the party casts about for any good news amid the gas-plant scandal, in which Premier Kathleen Wynne looks set for a legal showdown with Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Hudak and new revelations that the boyfriend of a Grit staffer was hired as an IT expert on the taxpayers dime.

Finance Minister Charles Sousa is expected to unveil a request for proposals Tuesday that will ask grocery stores to sign up to have an LCBO Express store placed in them, a government source said. The government will then select a handful of stores to receive the kiosks.

The tentative step toward liberalizing liquor sales does not go as far as Quebec, which has long allowed beer and wine to be sold in grocery and convenience stores.

Alberta has an entirely privatized liquor retail system and British Columbia, which has a hybrid model, is set to allow liquor in grocery stores in the near future.

The idea, first announced in 2012, follows several similar moves from the LCBO, which has in recent years put liquor stores adjacent to supermarkets. This, however, would be another step at mixing the government liquor monopoly with private retail. The kiosks will still be owned and run by the LCBO, but will occupy space in the middle of grocery stores.

Mr. Hudaks Tories have stirred the age-old privatization debate over the past year, putting out a policy paper that envisages selling off all or part of the LCBO. Proponents of privatization argue that introducing competition into the market would lead to more liquor stores, better selection and service. Alberta, for instance, has more than 1,100 liquor stores, only slightly fewer than the combined total of LCBOs and Beer Stores, in a province less than a third the size of Ontario. Unlike the LCBO, many of the prairie provinces liquor stores keep late hours.

The Liberals have repeatedly vowed not to privatize liquor sales in large part because of the money the LCBO funnels into government coffers.

With the Grits holding only a minority of seats in the legislature, they must secure the support of at least one other party to pass a budget and avoid a spring election. In the event of a vote, the promise of more accessible liquor may be a method to deflect the Tories privatization promises.

The kiosk announcement is also coming down unexpectedly after several days that saw Queens Park dominated by explosive developments in the gas-plant scandal. Last week, an unsealed police document revealed that investigators believe former premier Dalton McGuintys chief of staff brought in outside IT expert Peter Faist to wipe clean government computers.

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Ontario Liberals push forward with plan to sell liquor in grocery stores

CTV Montreal Published Tuesday, April 1, 2014 11:00AM EDT Last Updated Tuesday, April 1, 2014 12:33PM EDT

A Forum poll conducted on Monday indicates the Liberal party is the frontrunner with one week to go before the election.

According to the poll 41 percent of Quebecers support the Liberals, followed by the PQ at 29 percent, the CAQ at 19 percent and Quebec Solidaire with 7 percent.

Compared with the previous Forum poll, which was conducted on March 19, it shows Liberal and PQ supporters have been switching their allegiance to the Coalition Avenir Quebec.

The poll also includes a linguistic breakdown indicating that 39 percent of decided francophones support the Liberal party while only 30 percent prefer the PQ.

This is the only poll by any firm during the election campaign to show more francophones supporting the Liberals. Every other poll has shown around 40 percent of francophones prefer the PQ, with about 30 percent supporting the Liberal party.

The telephone poll surveyed 854 people on March 31, 2014. It has a margin of error of 3 percent, 19 times out of 20.

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Forum poll gives lead to Liberals, has bump for CAQ

Spencer Chandra Herbert asks why the Liberals support increasing tanker traffic on our coast

By: BCNDPCaucus

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Spencer Chandra Herbert asks why the Liberals support increasing tanker traffic on our coast - Video