A Progressive Conservative government would end the province’s monopoly on booze sales by opening up competition to the Liquor Control Board of Ontario.

One day after calling for Queen’s Park to get out of the day-to-day operation of gambling, Tory Leader Tim Hudak is expected to say Tuesday it’s time to end the government’s stranglehold on the sale of alcohol.

According to a party insider, his announcement is one of several this week intended to underscore the difference between the PCs and the governing Liberals.

“I am having a press conference (Tuesday) around the future of retailing alcohol in our province,” Hudak told reporters Monday, adding that tough decisions are needed to help dig Ontario out of its $14.4 billion deficit.

Just last week, Hudak told the Economic Club that a “massive bureaucracy” determines for example the size and shapes of alcohol bottles, “while rationing life-saving medicines for listing on the Ontario formulary.”

An aide later said Hudak has a plan to introduce more competition in a province where wine and spirit sales have been government-controlled since 1927.

Hudak said Monday there are “billions of dollars tied up in government-run businesses that we really don’t need to be in anymore in 2012 and beyond.”

“I think government should get out of the day-to-day operations of gambling in the province … and instead be a tough, respected regulator,” he told reporters at a Rabba store near Queen’s Park.

Finance Minister Dwight Duncan said on the Liberals’ watch the government is increasing the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation revenues while reducing the size of the agency.

“You can’t privatize it outright. That’s part of the challenge. What Mr. Hudak proposed today would require a change to the Criminal Code,” said Duncan, after his economic presentation to the Toronto Board of Trade.

Duncan was referring to the fact that the Criminal Code of Canada says the government of a province must manage lotteries and games of chance. Hudak called it a “grey area.”

Duncan also cautioned against any sell-off of the LCBO, pointing out the Liberals considered that but did not push forward due to “tax seepage,” among other issues.

“You rely on those organizations for income.”

The LCBO and the OLG each contribute billions of dollars to provincial coffers annually.

In 1995, the former Mike Harris Progressive Conservative government promised to sell the LCBO, but the sale never materialized.

NDP MPP Michael Prue (Beaches-East York) said both the Liberals and Conservatives seem bent on turning Ontario into a “second rate version” of Las Vegas.

“A casino on every corner might be their vision of the future but people don’t want to roll the dice with their future,” Prue said.

The Tories say British Columbia and Maritime provinces have contracted out their gaming operations to the private sector while the provinces still act as the regulator.

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OLG last year generated almost $4 billion in economic activity and handed almost $1.7 billion over to the province for hospitals and other programs.

According the American Gaming Association, in the 22 states with commercial casinos in 2011, casinos contributed $7.93 billion in tax revenue to state and local governments, a 4.5 per cent increase over 2010 figures.

With files from Robert Benzie

Ontario’s monopolies

623 – Number of LCBO retail stores

50.8 – LCBO’s percentage share of Ontario’s alcoholic beverage market, in dollar value

$4.7 billion – LCBO’s net sales and other income in 2011-12

$1.7 billion – Amount OLG gave to the province last year

8 million – Number of adults in Ontario who played the lottery last year

$459 – Net gaming revenue per Ontarian adult in 2011

Sources: LCBO, OLG

Compiled by Alex Nino Gheciu

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