Poetry Corner: “To the Liquor Control Board of Ontario”

To the Liquor Control Board of Ontario

Happy joyful people in your Vintages catalogue releases
but your need for safe profits has me falling to pieces

California you love
the lure of high turnover chokes you with its glove
an easy sale

Where is wine from British Columbia, Quebec and Nova Scotia?
the quality is there but look for them on your shelves and only tokenism (at best) is found
as for consumers you have ghettoized them with your lack of creativity

Take the safe path with your tried-and-true wines
over years and years you have shown no innovation
to the consumers of this great Canadian nation

Is it the insatiable greed of a monopoly?
the lack of courage and guts of its top management team?
the buyers not knowing the difference between the wines of Slovenia or Romania?
are British Columbia wine producers
from some leper colony?

Quebec too risky perhaps with its hybrids and Nova Scotia too?
at the end of the day your behaviour shows to wine consumers huge disrespect
Afraid of direct shipments to consumers might deprive Ontario of its tax?

The bottom line is the amount of jobs and revenue created in Canada if you scale down your
pumping out of European and Californian wines
and focused on increasing Canadian wares on the shelf
I am not buying the argument you make that your private order system gives consumers a truly global choice
We really know what’s going on here

Robert K. Stephen