Nova Scotia debates Sunday shopping

Last provincial Sunday shopping ban wavers; churches largely silent

KEVIN HEINRICHS
Managing Editor
— Halifax —

The last province to maintain a widespread Sunday shopping ban is thinking of cashing in. Currently the ban, known as the Retail Business Uniform Closing Day Act, forbids all except convenience stores from opening on Sunday, even during the lucrative Christmas season.

But a recent push by lobby groups to end the ban is pitting consumers against retailers and unions against employers. Churches have so far been absent from the public debate, even though it centres on a day that most Christians consider their Sabbath.

The debate has largely played out at the grassroots level and in the letters to the editor of local papers. According to recent public opinion polls, a strong majority of Nova Scotians—84 percent in one poll—would like to shop on Sundays.

The Halifax Chamber of Commerce is using that sentiment to push the province to lift its ban, arguing that Sunday openings could bring an extra $21 million, especially from weekend tourists.

“We’re saying these are ridiculous regulations,” says Judith Gabrita, director of Tourism Industry Association of Nova Scotia. “The government should not be regulating shopping hours at all. We want to take the focus off of religion with this issue,” she says, adding that their main message is that shoppers should be able to choose when they shop, not the government.

Rob Batheson, spokesperson for Premier John Hamm’s office, says there are already plenty of opportunities for people to shop, just not on Sundays.

“If [Nova Scotia] doesn’t have the most open hours of business in the country, we’re pretty close. We’re open most evenings Monday to Saturday.” Batheson says the Premier is following the debate, but he doesn’t see a need for changes right now. Premier Hamm said during municipal elections earlier this year that he would like to keep Sundays free for families.

Day off

But retailers don’t like the idea and neither do the unions representing their employees.

“Take a day off folks. Get a life,” Canadian Auto Workers union representative Larry Wark told a local newspaper. Wark represents about 50 retail stores in Atlantic Canada and says the vast majority prefer their Sundays off.

Indeed, nearly 63 percent of independent retailers across Nova Scotia are opposed to any changes to the current regulation banning Sunday shopping, according to a spring survey by the Canadian Federation of Independent Business.

“This is an ongoing debate mainly between large urban box retailers, department stores, hotels and locally owned businesses,” says Peter O’Brien, vice president Atlantic for the CFIB. He says that Sunday shopping would only be of benefit to large stores, not locally owned businesses whose overhead costs are proportionally higher.

The issue has given birth to a website rallying groups opposed to Sunday opening, Save our Sundays (http://members.tripod.com/saveoursundays). Its opening page features an open Bible with a shining star above it.

The site’s author—David, a grocer who prefers not to be identified with his last name for fear of his job—argues that a 1991 New Brunswick study by the Fredericton Chamber of Commerce proves that having stores open a seventh day in the week won’t bring in any extra income. A five-month pilot project found that Sunday shopping simply redistributed regular sales volume for a six day period over seven days.

He also says that retail workers deserve to be able to spend time with family and friends and attend religious services.