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Wynne is merely responding to what you all told her: You like the LCBO and you want to keep it

That’s it, Ontarians. You’ve finally done it. You’ve ended the dream of liquor privatization in your province forever.

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That, in case you didn’t notice, is the upshot of this week’s announcement by the Ontario Liberals that they will allow wine to be sold in grocery stores. It kills the hope of privatization good and dead. And while it’s easy, and entirely proper, to mock Premier Kathleen Wynne for the lame timidity of her baby steps into liquor retail reform, the blame lies as much with Ontario’s tipplers as it does with her. Probably more so.

That’s because Wynne is merely responding to what you all told her: You like the LCBO and you want to keep it. The government checked with you, in poll after poll, and every time, Ontarians couldn’t help but praise their local state-run liquor monopoly outlet. Every two years, the LCBO conducts a survey of its customers: A decade ago, the agency was chalking up high levels of customer satisfaction, with eight out of 10 respondents saying they were “highly satisfied,” and just one per cent dissatisfied. By 2012, that number was … even higher. The LCBO reached “a new record of 84 per cent in customer satisfaction,” according to its annual report that year.