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“Fine, but the LCBO at least stops underage drinkers from buying beer.” So. Does. Everyone. In every bar, café, and restaurant, people who look underage get carded. And it’s not just for highballs and cocktails. There are already more than 200 private retailers, in small towns across Ontario, who sell bottled alcohol. And even though their employees don’t wear the magically powered LCBO nametags, they still somehow manage to say “ID please.”

Which brings us to the awkward problem posed by these private liquor stores, the independently owned Wine Rack chain, and the 58 grocery stores that are now selling beer. Their very existence proves that the LCBO is not needed. And the Liberal government has known this for a long time.

A decade ago, then Ontario Finance Minister Greg Sorbara convened experts to provide recommendations for improving the LCBO. Several months later the panel concluded the only way to make things better was to kill it. They wrote that under privatization: “Consumers would get greater convenience and choice, and would benefit from a competitive retail environment; the government would remove itself from investment risk while increasing its annual revenues; and Ontario would continue to benefit from sound social responsibility practices.”

Sorbara immediately rejected the findings.

Why? Because of us, the voters. Ontarians have such a high regard for the status quo and such low expectations for our governments that we only shrug and turn the page when confronted with the otherwise indefensible. And it’s not just the LCBO. Premier prorogues the legislature to avoid public hearings into the cancellation of gas plants? Auditor General discovers mismanagement cost us an extra $37 billion in electricity costs? Premier’s chief of staff arrested on charges of breach of trust?

Meh, it could be worse. The motto of this province should be “Bonum est satis” — seems good enough.

Sorbara knew, and Kathleen Wynne knows, that shutting down the archaic LCBO would be a headache, that unions would shout and cry, and that in the end Ontarians don’t really care one way or the other about booze (or, for that matter, almost anything.)

And, from that perspective, our antiquated, expensive, inefficient, inconvenient, and unnecessary liquor monopoly suddenly makes sense: It’s the system we deserve.

Scott Gilmore is an Ottawa writer from Alberta.