Buying booze in a corner store is a recent innovation in Ontario. But as we learn in this week’s Cochrane history feature, the idea has been around a long time.
Twenty-five years ago today – October 1st, 1999 – the Cochrane Times carried a story with Temiskaming-Cochrane Liberal MPP David Ramsay reacting to the concept.
He noted that a pilot project in the north over the previous two decades had agency stores in small communities, with no problems.
His major concern was the prospect of privatizing the LCBO. He also wanted the current system at the Beer Store protected.
Ramsay was elected as a New Democrat in 1985, but crossed the floor to the Liberal party the following year, he said the north needed better representation, and thought the Toronto leadership of the NDP was out of touch with his rural populist base. Ramsay died in 2020 at the age of 72.
The archives at the Cochrane Public Library are the source for our weekly history feature.
