Alcohol has sometimes played a role in Canadian political contests
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Bartending experience isn’t on any forward-facing curriculum vitae for either Mark Carney or Pierre Poilievre, but the Liberal and Conservative party leaders found themselves slinging suds on Monday.
One of them for other people. The other, seemingly, for himself.
“Who wants to have a barley sandwich,” the Conservative leader, flanked by his wife Anaida, asks from behind the bar at King Street Brewing Co. and Rustico in Fredericton, N.B.
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As Poilievre begins his prepared remarks with a Winston Churchill quip about alcohol, one man loudly interrupts, ”Speak up, sir. We’re deaf.”
After a brief campaign speech, he pours a dark-bodied beer and hands it off first to a gentleman before Anaida reminds him, “ladies first,” and it’s offered to the woman seated adjacent instead. In the CPAC video, he then pours and serves two more beers at the business in the Fredericton-Oromocto riding represented by candidate Brian Macdonald.
Meanwhile, Carney ended a quick campaign stop in Georgetown, Ont., standing behind the bar at the St. George Pub to pour himself up a golden pint of Moosehead in front of the cameras and share cheers with area candidates Kristina Tesser Derksen (Milton East – Halton Hills South) and Adam van Koeverden (Burlington North – Milton West).
He shared the clip on his social media channels.
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The National Post contacted Roger Mittag, Thirst For Knowledge Inc. and the industry-leading Prud’homme Beer Certification program, for his take on Carney and Poilievre’s respective pouring styles.
He said the CPC leader’s hand position could have been a bit lower, and the glass was “a bit too close to the faucet,” which runs the risk of not generating enough foam. While most casual beer drinkers prefer little to no foam, seasoned beer and brewing enthusiasts will attest to how “the head” enhances flavour, aroma and mouthfeel.
On his first drink, Mittag noted Poilievre “opened the faucet and closed it perfectly,” but did so two times and left the glass short on foam.
“The second glass was good, but stopped too early, and the third one was perfect,” he said via email.
As for Carney, the “Professor of Beer” complimented the Grit’s hand position, pour and finish, but said “he should remove the glass immediately after closing the tap because you want to avoid a drop breaking the top of the foam.”
The men gunning to become prime minister aren’t the first federal leaders to step behind the stick for a photo-op.
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As reported by Narcity before the 2022 election, former prime minister Justin Trudeau deployed the time-tested political tactic at the Hawthorne Beer Market in Surrey, B.C.
A bartender studying to become a cicerone — the beer equivalent of a sommelier — offered a detailed critique of Trudeau’s form and said he needed to correct a lot of common mistakes.
“He’s doing fine, but there’s room for improvement,” said Ella Huber
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Campaign events at breweries, wineries and bars are more about portraying an image of approachability than promoting the industry, but alcohol has been used as an election tool in Canada on some noteworthy occasions, specifically in Ontario.
Ford’s buck-a-beer commitment
During the 2018 Ontario provincial election campaign, Progressive Conservative leader Doug Ford promised voters “buck-a-beer” — a pledge to lower the minimum price for a can of beer to $1 from $1.25 in time for Labour Day weekend.
Ford won the election and made good on the promise, but only three breweries took part — Barley Days Brewery, Cool Beer Brewing Company, and a President’s Choice brand. By January 2019, Cool Beer was the last to offer $1 beer, but restricted it to holiday long weekends.
During this February’s election, the premier dropped another alcohol promise in the Tory platform, promising to get rid of the floor price of spirits. In Ontario, the minimum price for liquor is indexed to inflation and depends on its volume and alcohol content.
Post-prohibition politics
In 1934, then-Ontario Premier George Henry introduced and saw passed a bill making it legal to sell and consume full-strength beer in public. A 20-year prohibition had ended seven years earlier, but consumption outside the home was restricted to a low-percentage beer dubbed “Fergie’s Foam” that could only be served in designated and strictly-governed places around the province, according to Carleton University Canadian history professor Matthew Bellamy.
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The Liberals accused Henry of trying to divide the Liberal caucus between the imbibers and the teetotalers. Leader Mitchell Hepburn publicly stated that “is that Prohibition is not and should not be made a political partisan issue,” per the Dictionary of Canadian Biography.
But he also promised to maintain the legislation if elected, which is precisely what came to pass.
A ‘conspicuous’ barrel
Before Canada was even a country, London, Ont., brewer John Carling and his brother William decided the best way to protect their interests in the face of the temperance movement was to have John seek political office.
Looking to secure the vote, the candidate may have made sure his name was on the tip of their tongue, so to speak.
“In a room adjoining the polling station was a barrel of beer for the refreshment of the thirsty, conspicuously branded with ‘J. Carling,’ but whether as brewer or donor, or what influence the beer may have exercised in securing the head of the poll, we do not pretend to say,’ the editor of the Canadian Free Press wrote at the time, according to Canada’s National History Society,
Carling would win that election and move into provincial and federal politics in a nascent Canada while also remaining connected to the beer business.
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