Hey, I'm Canadian. In fact, I'm a Canadian living in Ontario, where roughly 40% of all the booze in Canada is sold, the vast majority through a government-run operation called the LCBO. (It's a post-Prohibition thing; the initials stand for the Liquor Control Board of Ontario.) So I guess I can comment on the impact of the removal of Russian products.
Yes, the LCBO has removed all Russian-made products from their store shelves. This mainly impacts Russian Standard Vodka, which while not a major player in the market, is neither a minor one. So the impact, while widely noted and reported -- I even did a radio segment on it the other day -- was just north of negligible.
Thing is, being a government bureaucracy, the LCBO was able to target very specifically brands made in Russia, rather than just sounding Russian. So Stoli* and Smirnoff remain on the shelves, and I have heard of no suggested boycotts of or outrage against those or other Russian-esque brands.
*Stoli is actually a bit of a fringe candidate here, since while what we get in North America is packaged in Latvia, I have it on good authority that it is made from grain neutral spirit produced across the border in Russia.
Hey, I'm Canadian. In fact, I'm a Canadian living in Ontario, where roughly 40% of all the booze in Canada is sold, the vast majority through a government-run operation called the LCBO. (It's a post-Prohibition thing; the initials stand for the Liquor Control Board of Ontario.) So I guess I can comment on the impact of the removal of Russian products.
Yes, the LCBO has removed all Russian-made products from their store shelves. This mainly impacts Russian Standard Vodka, which while not a major player in the market, is neither a minor one. So the impact, while widely noted and reported -- I even did a radio segment on it the other day -- was just north of negligible.
Thing is, being a government bureaucracy, the LCBO was able to target very specifically brands made in Russia, rather than just sounding Russian. So Stoli* and Smirnoff remain on the shelves, and I have heard of no suggested boycotts of or outrage against those or other Russian-esque brands.
*Stoli is actually a bit of a fringe candidate here, since while what we get in North America is packaged in Latvia, I have it on good authority that it is made from grain neutral spirit produced across the border in Russia.