The notion of your local Co-op selling you booze — or anything else you fancy — is hardly a political statement anymore.
Sure, there’s a history here.
The old co-operative movement — whether it was the grocery and hardware store fuel supplier and lumber yard — might have long ago been thought of as CCF-NDP enterprise along with the Credit Unions and former Saskatchewan Wheat Pool.
Kids of CCF parents would even be sent to “co-op camps” to learn the ways.
By contrast, some of those of a more free-enterprise persuasion — like Brad Wall and his father who ran a private store — were not exactly pro-Co-op.
That Wall says both he and his dad now occasionally shop at the Swift Current Co-op suggests times have changed.
Federated Co-op Ltd. in Saskatoon may still have connection to the NDP. President and CEO Scott Banda is a one-time NDP leadership hopeful and son of former NDP MLA Dennis Banda. Other senior executives go back to the last NDP government as well.
But while the Wheat Pool is long gone, Federated Co-op is stronger than ever. It thrived because it has become a very big, diverse and competitive business, serving both rural and urban customers very well.
And nowhere has the Federated Co-op shown more leadership than in retail liquor, whether its highly successful Blairmore neighbourhood location in Saskatoon — one of the first four private liquor store franchises in the province — has absolutely thrived.
Ironically, no one was more likely more appreciative of this than Wall, who made liquor store privatization the centrepiece of his Saskatchewan Party’s 2016 provincial election campaign.
Why this notion became so saleable to the electorate had to do with the success of this particular Saskatoon Co-op liquor store.
The Co-op already has a huge foothold in private liquor sales with some 100 outlets in Western Canada (including some of the biggest, most successful private liquor stores in Alberta).
Opening on time and providing an excellent selection and price for its spirits while still paying decent unionized wages to its employee the Saskatoon Co-op’s Blairmore location was the ideal success story for the government.
And that made it very difficult for either old NDP-CCFers or the unions to complain about such a privatized success story.
So when Wall announced there would be 50 new privatized liquor store outlets — 39 government-run retail liquor converted outlets and 11 new private stores — one might have thought the Co-ops were being rewarded for their considerable contribution to Wall’s privatization age.
Well, not withstanding the government spin that they got 14 privatized outlets — compared with nine granted to Sobeys — the Co-op hierarchy says it doesn’t think it did very well at all.
“We are completely shut out. And for us that is just, frankly, disappointing,” said Vic Huard, Federated Co-op vice-president, told the Saskatoon StarPhoenix.
“They (the Sask. Party government) are tilting the playing field.”
While local Co-ops were successful in 14 rural town bids, those liquor stores are expected to only do about $19 million worth of annual sales — about equal to one of the Saskatoon franchises secured by Sobeys that is expected to do as much in annual sales as the 14 Co-op franchises combined.
In fact, the eight in Sobeys stores will likely generate $72 million in annual sales.
Also, Sobeys was granted liquor store franchise in Moose Jaw and Yorkton … after closing their grocery operations in those cities.
And with no dollar aspect attached to the bids, it’s rather strange the Sask. Party would award the plum location to a Maritime-headquartered business rather than ones centred in Saskatchewan.
Maybe there is still something to the old rivalries between the co-ops and other retailers still exist after all.
Murray Mandryk has been covering provincial politics for over 22 years.
