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Photo by Jack Boland / Jack Boland/Toronto Sun

All the while, we pay through the roof for our electricity and are treated like Stepford Wives, having to do our laundry or use electricity at certain times to save on the cost of electricity, which was already in oversupply. Trash that now. Hopefully, that’s on Premier Doug Ford’s “to-do” list.

For 15 years of Liberal rule, we were not only subjected to “Big Brother” government social experiments, we were misinformed about the size of our deficit which, according the auditor general, has ballooned billions of dollars beyond what the Orwellian government told us it was.

We have also been liberated from restrictions in buying beer and wine. Prohibition never quite ended in Ontario, but the Liberals made sure the nanny state would prevail. A few years ago, in what was announced as some kind of pre-revolution in the booze industry, then Attorney General Yasir Naqvi brandished 12-packs of beer at the LCBO announcing a “pilot project” in selling beer in 12 packs at the provincially run liquor store. What could have possibly been lurking in his mind? Pilot project to what end? To see whether the Lumpenproletarians could handle it? I don’t recall seeing 12-packs at the LCBO recently, so maybe we flunked the social experiment.

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According to the speech from the throne, we’ll be able to buy beer and wine from convenience stores, grocery stores and big-box stores. This has been the case for as long as I can remember in Quebec.

Ontario has long been a laggard in modernizing the sale of alcohol, and embarrassingly so. Certain Ontario wines and beers are available in some grocery stores, while others are available elsewhere. Some grocery stores don’t carry alcohol at all. Corner stores? Don’t even think about it. The LCBO carries hard liquor and other types of wines and beers. The current byzantine system is patronizing, moralizing and puritanical.

Now you’ll be able to buy your beer and wine, like an adult, in the store of your choice. I don’t expect riots or mass unrest to result. The past government’s ideological resistance to easing the sale of booze was illogical. This is 2018 and that’s going to change.

Ford ran his campaign on the “for the people” slogan. Less micro-managing of us plebes by government is a great start on keeping his promise.

— Andre Marin is the former ombudsman of Ontario and former director of the SIU.

Twitter.com/Ont_AndreMarin