LCBO to stop selling American liquor ‘indefinitely’ starting Tuesday

Ontario Premier Doug Ford announced that the LCBO will stop stocking U.S. brands on shelves and will remove them from catalogues as of Tuesday.

All American liquor will be removed from LCBO shelves starting Tuesday, Ontario Premier Doug Ford said the day after the U.S. levied punishing tariffs on Canadian products.

“As part of Ontario’s response strategy to the imposed U.S. tariffs on Canadian goods, the government of Ontario has directed (the) LCBO to indefinitely stop all sales of U.S. alcohol products in our stores and online and to stop wholesale sales of U.S. products to restaurants, bars, grocery and other retailers no later than February 4, 2025,” an LCBO spokesperson confirmed to CTV News.

The LCBO adds it sells up to $965 million worth of American alcohol, with more than 3,600 U.S. products available.

“Every year, LCBO sells nearly $1 billion worth of American wine, beer, sprits and seltzers. Not anymore,” Ford said in an early morning post on X.

The Crown agency says more information will be made available to their customers and suppliers.

British Columbia and Nova Scotia also moved to pull American liquor from its provincially-owned stores. Additionally, B.C. Premier David Eby specifically directed BC Liquor stores to “immediately stop buying American liquor from red states.”

On Saturday, U.S. President Donald Trump imposed across-the-board tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China. The commander-in-chief’s reasoning to enact this new tax, as explained in a post on TruthSocial, comes as a result of the “major threat of illegal aliens and deadly drugs killing our citizens, including fentanyl.”

Less than one per cent of fentanyl and illegal crossings into the U.S. comes from Canada, however, the federal government has started lobbying efforts with D.C. officials about their $1.3-billion border security enhancements.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said the White House’s move to enforce 25 per cent tariffs on Canadian imports, and 10 per cent on Canadian energy—including oil, natural gas and electricity—has “split us apart instead of bringing us together.”

In response, Canada is putting its foot down and matching Trump’s tariffs, laying down 25 per cent tariffs in return on $155 billion in U.S. imports, including alcohol and fruit. Trudeau revealed at a press conference on Saturday night that he and Trump have not yet spoken about the trade war.

“If President Trump wants to usher in a new golden age for the United States, the better path is to partner with Canada, not to punish us,” Trudeau said.

On Saturday, Ford called the new import tariffs “unjustified, unfair and frankly, illegal.”

“This is going to hurt Americans. It’s going to hurt Canadians. We’re going to see inflation happening down in the U.S. and Canada, and it’s unjustified,” Ford said in an interview with CNN.

“It’s unfortunate. We don’t want to do it. We’d rather have a strong trading partner with the U.S., build an Am-Can fortress. We want to ship down more products, more critical minerals, more oil. That’s what we want to do.”

The premier, who’s also running as PC leader in the middle of a provincial election campaign, has previously threatened to cut the power the province currently supplies for three U.S. states—Michigan, New York and Wisconsin—as a retaliatory measure to these tariffs.

According to the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, $3.6 billion in goods and services cross between Canada and the U.S. on a daily basis, paving a $1.3 trillion annual trading relationship employing millions of workers on both sides of the border.

CTV News Toronto reached out to the LCBO for comment.

With files from CTV News’s National Correspondent Rachel Aiello