Ford's "buck-a-beer" legislation is populism at its worst

I can't for the life of me figure out why Doug Ford's proposed "buck-a-beer" legislation is garnering so much media attention. Because that's just what is: an attention grab with very little substance to it.
Ford's plan (and a major plank of his election platform, if you can believe it) is to reduce the "floor price" of beers with under 5.6% alcohol from the current $1.25 to $1.00 a beer for a pack of 24. He claims that it will foster more competition in Ontario's beer market. With a manic grin on his face, Ford giggled, "Ontario, the day you've been waiting for is finally here". It was kind of embarrassing.
However, this doesn't actually mean that all beer is suddenly going to cost $1.00 in the LCBO or the Beer Store - most breweries already charge more than this theoretical minimum, and are not going to (can't afford to) change their pricing no matter what the allowed minimum might be. The change certainly has no effect on draft beer sold in pubs and restaurants.
It is only the big breweries, selling the bog-standard, nasty, basic beers - the Labatts Blue, Molson Canadian, Coors Lights of the Canadian beer world - who will even consider this, and it is far from clear whether even they will want to take up this "opportunity" to make less money - why would they voluntarily take a 25% hit to their bottom line?). The last time the minimum price of a can of beer was $1 was back in 2008, and we have seen about 16% inflation since then.
A quality beer, and certainly a small-batch craft beer, just costs more than that, and many small breweries have already come out saying that this whole circus just does not apply to them. In fact, the little guys will probably suffer, especially as Ford intends to offer "non-financial incentives" to those companies who take up the "buck-a-beer challenge", such as preferential in-store displays, promotion and advertising advantages, etc.
Beer Canada, a major breweries trade organization, has come out strongly against the plan, and Ontario Craft Brewers says that it doesn't expect any of its members to start selling beer at $1. Other organizations warn that the move is likely to encourage already rampant alcoholism, and likely lead to more drunk driving incidents (Ford's response to this claim was a rather callous "I think that people in Ontario are mature enough, they're mature enough to know when they've had one too many"). The opposition NDP has pointed out the callousness of such a move after the government has just cut the basic income pilot project, and they have also pointed out that this will not acgually be revenue-neutral for the government.
It's difficult for me to see why the Conservatives see this as such an important policy initiative. I guess it might help to bolster Ford's man-of-the-people schtick, and popularize him with the poorer and less discerning of the Ontario electorate. But how it can be seen as an important piece of provincial legislation, I am really not sure. This is schlock populism at its worst.

UPDATE
One week into Ford's much-touted buck-a-beer program, all of three breweries have taken up this tempting retail opportunity, and one of those is aparently regretting it. Barley Days Brewery, Cool Beer Brewing Company and Presidents Choice are the only three breweries to chose to sell beer at $1 a can, and Presidents Choice owner Loblaws is to stop it's promotion after just one week, claiming it was only ever intended to be a temporary measure.