Some 7,000 unionized employees at the Beer Store are urging Premier Doug Ford not to make it last call for the private retailer by expanding brew sales to corner stores.

The United Food and Commercial Workers Union Canada Local 12R24 on Friday launched a public awareness blitz against Ford’s plan to liberalize the selling of beer and wine.

Three 30-second radio ads began airing across the province, blasting the premier for proposing “to spend $1 billion shutting down the Beer Store,” bankrolled by cuts to health care and education.

“Premier Ford, keep your promise that no one will lose a job,” a male announcer intones in each of the hard-hitting attack ads.

John Nock, the president of the union local, warned “the Ford government is creating chaos for communities by pushing ahead with corner-store beer sales.”

“Right now, beer prices before taxes in Ontario are among the lowest in Canada due to our efficient distribution system to outlets that are equipped to handle beer safely,” said Nock of the 450-outlet chain owned by Labatt, Molson, Sleeman and about 30 small Ontario breweries.

“Study after study has shown that beer prices will rise due to higher distribution costs and the usual convenience store markups,” he said.

“That is what happened in Alberta when it privatized alcohol sales, which Doug Ford’s $1,000-a-day alcohol consultant Ken Hughes knows too well because he profited from it as a partner in Alberta Spirits Inc.”

Hughes no longer has any stake in Alberta Spirits Inc., which is now owned by the company that runs that province’s largest booze chain, Liquor Depot.

Ford and Finance Minister Vic Fedeli hired him to oversee the expansion of alcohol sales in Ontario.

But Fedeli has emphasized that the government is not contemplating a sell-off of the LCBO, the provincially owned 660-store chain that has a monopoly on liquor sales in Ontario.

Industry sources have told the Star that Queen’s Park could be on the hook for at least $1 billion in payouts to the Beer Store if it breaches a 10-year deal signed in 2015 with the previous Liberal government that expanded sales to 450 supermarkets.

That would be to compensate the brewers for $100 million already spent on infrastructure improvements, lost profits during a two-year price freeze in the contract, and the cost of winding down the chain, including severance payments, pension liabilities,\ and broken lease penalties.

Hughes has dismissed that as “fear-mongering.”

The premier’s booze czar has noted the province has “tools in our tool kit” to get the breweries, who have operated the chain since the end of Prohibition in 1927, to agree to revised terms.

But he has declined to discuss what those measures might be, stressing it was “premature” and “irresponsible” to discuss compensation to the Beer Store for cancelling the accord.

The complex 10-year deal highlights potential liabilities for scrapping the deal.

“An arbitration tribunal ... shall treat all obligations in this agreement ... as binding and enforceable against the province despite its status as the Crown, even where the alleged breach results from a change in legislation or public policy,” the 27-page accord states.

“Such an award shall be calculated on the basis of the normal principles of damages for breach of contract.”

Nock warned beer prices would inevitably rise because distribution costs will increase.

“If the government really wants to lower beer prices, it would reduce Ontario taxes, which are among the highest in Canada. It’s definitely not ‘for the people.’”

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Fedeli ducked questions last week about whether he would lower beer taxes, which are much higher in Ontario than in Quebec or Alberta, the two jurisdictions he touts when promoting looser beer restrictions.

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Robert Benzie is the Star’s Queen’s Park bureau chief and a reporter covering Ontario politics. Follow him on Twitter: @robertbenzie

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