SUDBURY AND DISTRICT LABOUR COUNCIL UNITED FOOD AND COMMERCIAL WORKERS, LOCALS 175/633
SUDBURY AND DISTRICT CHAMBER OF COMMERCE
ONTARIO HOTEL AND MOTEL ASSOCIATION
SAULT STE MARIE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE
CONTENTS
Wednesday 7 August 1991
Retail Business Establishments Statute Law Amendment Act, 1991, Bill 115 / Loi de 1991 modifiant des lois en ce qui concerne les établissements de commerce de détail, projet de loi 115
Sudbury and District Labour Council; United Food and Commercial Workers, Locals 175/633
Sudbury and District Chamber of Commerce
Ontario Hotel and Motel Association
A&J Home Hardware
Sault Ste Marie Chamber of Commerce
Adjournment
STANDING COMMITTEE ON ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE
Chair: White, Drummond (Durham Centre NDP)
Vice-Chair: Morrow, Mark (Wentworth East NDP)
Acting Chair: Cooper, Mike (Kitchener-Wilmot NDP)
Carr, Gary (Oakville South PC)
Chiarelli, Robert (Ottawa West L)
Fletcher, Derek (Guelph NDP)
Gigantes, Evelyn (Ottawa Centre NDP)
Harnick, Charles (Willowdale PC)
Mathyssen, Irene (Middlesex NDP)
Mills, Gordon (Durham East NDP)
Poirier, Jean (Prescott and Russell L)
Sorbara, Gregory S. (York Centre L)
Winninger, David (London South NDP)
Substitutions:
Cooper, Mike (Kitchener-Wilmot NDP) for Mr White
Daigeler, Hans (Nepean L) for Mr Chiarelli
Jackson, Cameron (Burlington South PC) for Mr Harnick
Lessard, Wayne (Windsor-Walkerville NDP) for Mrs Mathyssen
O'Connor, Larry (Durham-York NDP) for Mr Winninger
Also taking part: Murdock, Sharon (Sudbury NDP)
Clerk: Freedman, Lisa
Staff: Swift, Susan, Research Officer, Legislative Research Service
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The committee met at 1006 in the Senator Hotel, Sudbury.
RETAIL BUSINESS ESTABLISHMENTS STATUTE LAW AMENDMENT ACT, 1991 / LOI DE 1991 MODIFIANT DES LOIS EN CE QUI CONCERNE LES ÉTABLISSEMENTS DE COMMERCE DE DÉTAIL
Resuming consideration of Bill 115, An Act to amend the Retail Business Holidays Act and the Employment Standards Act in respect of the opening of retail business establishments and employment in them.
Reprise de l'étude du projet de loi 115, Loi modifiant la Loi sur les jours fériés dans le commerce de détail et la Loi sur les normes d'emploi en ce qui concerne l'ouverture des établissements de commerce de détail et l'emploi dans ces établissements.
The Acting Chair (Mr Cooper): I would like to call this meeting of the standing committee on administration of justice to order. This is a tripartite committee and we are studying Bill 115, the Retail Business Establishments Statute Law Amendment Act.
Mr Sorbara: What about introducing the new members of this committee? The makeup seems to change every day.
The Acting Chair: We have Tony Martin, the member for Sault Ste Marie subbing in today, and Sharon Murdock, the member for Sudbury will be a guest on the committee.
Mr Sorbara: Is that coincidental?
The Acting Chair: Obviously.
Mr Sorbara: Do we advise our new members of what we have been hearing over the past few days, that people are more or less anxious for the government to get out of the business of regulating Sunday shopping so they can get on with their lives?
Mr Morrow: It has not been summed up yet.
SUDBURY AND DISTRICT LABOUR COUNCIL UNITED FOOD AND COMMERCIAL WORKERS, LOCALS 175/633
The Acting Chair: We will start off by calling our first presenter, the Sudbury and District Labour Council. Thank you for coming this morning. You will be given half an hour for your presentation, and you can use the full half-hour for your presentation or you can submit a shorter brief and allow time for questions and comments from each of the caucuses. That time will be divided equally among all three caucuses. Could you please identify yourself and then proceed.
Mr Morin: I am Don Morin. I am from the United Food and Commercial Workers, and next to me is Barb Young from the labour council. Because of time and holidays, the labour council has everybody on holidays. We are going to combine our briefs and put one together and we are the next on the list, UFCW. I have to say to the committee it is your choice. We can take the half-hour for each or half-hour total, whatever. It is in the committee's hands.
The Acting Chair: It would be more convenient for both of you to submit your briefs and then we will do the questions and answers.
Mr Morin: We only have the one brief.
The Acting Chair: Well, each do your own.
Ms Young: Mr Chairman, Locals 175/633 of the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union would like to thank the standing committee on administration of justice for the opportunity of appearing before it in order to put forth the views of our members, both provincially and in the Sudbury area, as well as reinforcing the position of the UFCW Canada as put forth on July 29, 1991.
Local 175 of the UFCW is the largest local union of any union in Canada, and with Local 633 has a combined membership of over 45,000 in the province of Ontario, mainly employed in the retail and support industries. As such, our members have a greater stake than most in the Sunday shopping/working issues facing the Ontario government.
The Ontario Federation of Labour, with which we are affiliated, supports the position which our locals and the UFCW Canada are putting forth since many other Ontario workers are directly and indirectly affected by the Sunday shopping/working issue.
Locals 175/633 and the labour movement in general appreciate the government's efforts in bringing forth legislation aimed at enshrining a common pause day in Ontario and providing needed restrictions both on Sunday shopping and Sunday working. While this proposed legislation is an important step forward, Locals 175/633 have five main concerns with the proposed amendments to the Retail Business Holidays Act. These concerns are related to (1) the intent of the RBHA; (2) the municipal option; (3) the drug store openings on Sundays; (4) enforcement of the legislation; (5) the definition of a retail business.
In this presentation we will present our members' views on each of these concerns. We will also address three other issues related to that of Sunday shopping/working.
1. The intent of the Retail Business Holidays Act. The present act: The present act fails to recognize the right of workers to a common pause day.
The proposed amendment: The proposed legislation recognizes the need for and the importance of a common pause day in part I of the Retail Business Holidays Act. The wording in the proposed amendment to subsection 4(2), such as "shall take into account" and "should be maintained" is, however, too general. This achieves only a watered-down version of what is required.
Recommendation: In order to ensure that the intent of the Retail Business Holidays Act is consistently followed, the amendment to subsection 4(2) regarding municipal powers should read:
"4(2) The council, in passing a bylaw under subsection (1), must maintain the principle that holidays are to remain as a common pause day; that is, to ensure that they remain:
"days on which most businesses are not open; and
"days on which most persons do not have to work."
2. The municipal option. The present act: The legislation implemented by the previous Liberal government provides that municipalities have full control over the decision to allow stores to open on Sundays or other holidays. There are no regulations, no criteria and no principles to guide municipalities in making the decisions. The will of the municipal councils simply predominates. The provincial government has no way of stopping wide-open Sunday shopping/working. One only has to look at the high rate of applications for exemption that are presently in the hands of the municipalities for proof of the extent of this problem.
The proposed amendment: As proposed, the decision-making process would remain in the hands of the municipalities. In addition, the regulations and criteria of the tourist exemption as set out in sections 1 and 2 and subsections 4(1) of the new amendments are so broad as to effectively restrict no one. Under the proposed rules, decisions of the municipalities would be final and the province, including the Solicitor General, would not be able to challenge this decision. In the view of Locals 175/633, this proposal would lead to wide-open Sunday shopping/working and as a result would fail to enshrine the common pause day as intended.
Recommendations: The recreational, entertainment and the cultural pursuits of tourists as well as the goal of enshrining the common pause day can both be accommodated by the law. To accomplish this, Locals 175/633 recommend that the proposed amendments be changed to reflect the following:
i. The new subsection 4(1) to read:
"4(1) Notwithstanding section 2 and subject to the provisions of clauses 4(1)(a) and (b) below, the council of a municipality may by bylaw permit retail business establishments in the municipality to be open on holidays where it is essential for the maintenance or development of a tourist industry and where it is essential to meet the educational, cultural, leisure and recreational needs of the tourist; and
"(a) only retail business establishments in which the total area used for serving the public or for selling or displaying to the public in the establishment is less than 4,000 square feet; and
"(b) the number of persons engaged in the service of the public in the establishment does not at any time exceed four."
ii. The government must establish a committee of the affected stakeholders that will prepare and recommend a new set of viable tourist criteria regulations. The stakeholders should include the representatives of the affected groups, such as retailers, unions and government.
iii. According to the amendment, the tourist criteria as proposed would not form part of the legislation. However, we recommend that the new set of viable regulations established by the stakeholders mentioned above be integrated into the legislation.
iv. Subsection 4(8) must be modified to state,
"4(8) The council's decision may be appealed by any interested party to the tourist exemption board."
3. The drugstore openings on Sundays. The present act: The drugstore with a square footage of 7,500 or less may open on a holiday under the present act. Currently, these drugstores must dispense drugs, and the principal business must be the sale of goods of a pharmaceutical or therapeutic nature for hygienic or cosmetic purposes. No other goods are allowed for sale with the exception of sundries. Unfortunately, there is a widespread problem with these drugstores selling soft drinks, potato chips, candies and other foodstuffs which are considered sundries. In many cases, up to 80% of sales in these stores consist of products of a non-pharmaceutical nature. This occurs in spite of the ample opportunity to purchase such non-pharmaceutical products provided through the numerous convenience stores that are allowed to open on Sunday. To compound the problem, the absence of a restriction on the number of employees working on a Sunday or holiday allows some drugstores to dedicate extra help for the benefit of sales of non-pharmaceutical products.
The proposed amendment: In its proposed legislation, the government has not addressed the problem of large drugstores opening on Sundays. The proposed legislation also fails to put a restriction on the number of employees allowed to work on a holiday.
Recommendation: Locals 175/633 recommend that clausess 3(2)(c) and (d) of the present act be amended to read as follows:
"3(2)(c) The total area used for serving the public or for selling or displaying to the public in the establishment is less than 2,400 square feet;
"3(2)(d) The number of persons engaged in the service of the public in the establishment does not at any time exceed four, including the pharmacist, who must be present in the establishment during business hours."
Currently there are many drugstores with a square footage of 2,400 or less in many communities in the province of Ontario that provide ample opportunity for this population to receive needed medication or other prescription products, particularly in cases of emergency. Additional prescriptions and other medication can be obtained at various hospitals and clinics with on-site pharmacies open on Sundays.
The limitation of four persons, including the pharmacist, to be engaged in the service of the public, would allow the prescriptions or other medication needs of the people of Ontario to be fully met. Our recommendation would require pharmacists to be present during business hours in the establishment in order to attend to the prescription and other medication needs of the people, which addresses the real reason for drugstores remaining open on Sundays.
4. Enforcement of the legislation. The present act: Currently, the act provides for maximum fines of $50,000 upon conviction for illegal Sunday openings. Also, municipalities or the Attorney General of Ontario can apply to the Supreme Court of Ontario for an injunction to close an establishment that is opening illegally. However, there are no minimum fines. In many cases, the courts are imposing fines of $300 upon conviction, hardly a deterrent. Under the present act, only two parties, the Attorney General of Ontario and the municipality, are allowed to file for an injunction. Unfortunately these two parties are, in many cases, not aware of violations or are not interested in filing for an injunction.
The proposed amendment: The government has proposed minimum fines of $500 for the first offence and $2,000 for the second offence. We fully support the principle of the minimum fine. However, the proposed fines are far too low. We believe that the amount of the proposed minimum fines will not deter retailers from opening on Sundays. In fact, a retailer's profit for one day could easily surpass the amount of the fine. Under the proposed legislation, there would be no change with regard to who can apply for an injunction. As a result, we foresee the same problems of little enforcement and no action continuing.
Recommendation: In order to address problems related to the fine being an insufficient deterrent, and the lack of enforcement, Locals 175/633 recommend the following:
i. the proposed amendment of the minimum penalty, subsection 3(1), be modified to include, "For first offences, the minimum fine for conviction be $10,000, and for subsequent offences, the minimum fine for conviction be $20,000";
ii. subsection 8(1) be amended to read, "Upon the application to the Supreme Court by any affected or interested party, the court may order that a retail business establishment close on a holiday to ensure compliance with this act or regulation under this act." &&
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At present, legislation similar to Locals 175/633's proposals exist in the province of Quebec, allowing affected parties to apply for an injunction. This legislation has proved to be both workable and effective.
As noted, in the UFCW Canada brief, the cost of enforcement is considerable in the Metro Toronto area, and we have no reason to believe that justice is cheaper in the north, which reinforces the need for reasonable and effective deterrents.
5. The definition of a retail business: Under the existing act the definition of a retail business does not include club warehouses, such as price clubs. The flaw allows for giant stores, in the guise of membership clubs, to be open on Sunday.
The proposed amendment: The government has not addressed the existing problem relating to the definition of a retail business. As a result, club warehouses will continue to operate on Sunday.
Recommendation: To prevent the circumvention of the act by establishments such as price clubs, clauses 1(1)(b),(c) and (d) of the present act should be amended to reflect the following:
"`Retail business' means the selling of goods or services by retail to any member of the public, including a member of a club or co-operative of any other group of consumers;
"`Retail business establishment' means the premises where a retail business is carried on. Any space or stall in markets, particularly in covered markets and `flea markets,' shall be considered to be a retail business;
"`Principal business' means that portion of the business which accounts for 80% of the retail business establishment's gross sales."
Our general concerns: Sunday shopping/working and cross-border shopping: The members of Locals 175/633 in this area fully support and endorse the position and the reasons put forth by UFCW Canada.
Sunday shopping/working and tourism: According to the proposed amendments to the Retail Business Holidays Act, the tourist exemption as proposed would be granted by the municipality only where it is essential for the maintenance or development of tourism. As previously stated, the proposed criteria for the tourist exemption are far too broad and too general and would provide too much leeway for municipalities to operate as the sole decision-makers. As a result, the exemption as proposed would lead to wide-open Sunday shopping/working.
The geography of the north dictates that ease of Sunday opening for tourism purposes could lead to one centre declaring itself a tourist area in order to draw the residents of another centre three or four hours away to come on Sunday to spend dollars badly needed in the drawn-upon centre.
Clearly, the government has not achieved a balance between the establishment of the principle of a common pause day and the development of tourism. However, by accepting our recommendations, Locals 175/633 believe that the recreational, entertainment and cultural needs of the tourists can be met without opting for wide-open Sunday shopping/working and without one centre of commerce preying upon its neighbours.
Sunday shopping/working and the family: The amendments proposed by the government would lead to wide-open shopping/working affecting a significant number of workers and their families in Ontario. Locals 175/633 believe that these workers and their families have a right to a common pause day.
Retail workers and their families are directly affected by Sunday shopping/working; that is more than two million people in Ontario. In addition, police, transportation, public workers, maintenance staff, delivery workers and other support services for retailing, which represent another 250,000 workers and their families, would also be affected by wide-open shopping/working on Sundays. Ontario needs a common pause day for workers and for their families.
In conclusion, the goal of Locals 175/633 has always been the enshrinement of a common pause day for the retail workers, for workers in related sectors and for their families. The amendments to the Retail Business Holidays Act proposed by the Ontario government, while representing a move in the right direction, would fail to ensure that this goal is met and would serve to open the door to a further erosion of the common pause day.
We firmly believe that by accepting our recommendations, the maintenance of family values and the establishment of a common pause day can be realized. Locals 175/633 are prepared to work with the government of Ontario and other groups to develop and implement lasting, workable solutions which serve to establish a common pause day and at the same time strengthen the economy of this province and benefit all the people of Ontario.
The Acting Chair: Before we proceed with the questioning, coffee and juice are available in the far corner for anybody who wants them. We will allow about 10 minutes. We will be really flexible for each caucus. We will start with Mr Sorbara.
Mr Sorbara: Can I begin by asking you to explain to the committee in your own words why the UFCW would like all or most of the stores to be closed on Sunday?
Mr Morin: We do not think they should be open. We do not need them open, and why should they be open and shopping -- people have six days now. The people who work in the stores have given up Saturday already. They work until midnight. Some work 24 hours a day.
Mr Sorbara: No, nobody works 24 hours a day.
Mr Morin: I am sorry. The stores are open 24 hours a day.
Mr Sorbara: So the stores are open 24 hours a day. It is against the Employment Standards Act and any collective agreement I have ever seen to allow people to work 24 hours a day.
Mr Morin: But people are working from 8 in the morning until 5, 5 to midnight, midnight to 8.
Mr Sorbara: Sure; shift work.
Mr Morin: It is a three-shift thing, and it is not a five-day shift, it is a six-day.
Mr Sorbara: And sometimes seven.
Mr Morin: No, Sundays are now closed.
Mr Sorbara: But can you explain to me why you want the stores to stay closed on Sunday?
Mr Morin: It is the only time the retail people of Ontario have with their families. It is the only time we can plan to say that we have time with the family, and if the stores are open we cannot possibly be with our families.
Mr Sorbara: But hold on a second. The previous government in its law and this government in its bill have given to every single retail worker the absolute, unequivocal, clear and precise right to have a common pause day on Sunday. They can refuse to work, without explanation or without reason. All they need to do, if they are assigned to Sunday work, is give 48 hours' notice and they can give notice for ever that they do not want to work on Sunday. Every retail worker will have that right. So within that context, why do you want the stores to stay closed?
Mr Morin: Mr Sorbara, just for your information, I am on staff and Barb and I both come from the retail section. I was a butcher for 25 years and Barb is still in the grocery business as a cashier. Until three years ago, I worked in the retail sector.
And you are right, we do have the right under the law, except when you get into the store situation, you walk up to the store manager of the company and say, "I'm sorry, but under my guidelines I do not want to work Sundays." "Oh, that's fine. You don't have to work." So you get your schedule the next week, and instead of working 8 o'clock in the morning or 9 o'clock in the morning to 2, all of a sudden you are scheduled 6:15 to 10:15 Saturday nights -- only Saturdays. You never get any more Monday to Friday shifts. You go up and say, "I'm sorry, Mr Manager, the last five weeks I've had 24 hours a week and this week I'm down to 16." He says: "Well, I'm sorry. Sunday shopping is so important to us that we need the hours on Sunday, and if you're not prepared to work Sunday, I'm sorry, we don't have any more hours for you."
Mr Sorbara: I cannot accept that, and the reason why --
Mr Morin: I work in the business and I can accept it.
Mr Sorbara: I appreciate that, but I also work in the business. I worked in the business as Minister of Labour and I have been an MPP, and I agree with you that there will be one or two instances per community where that might happen, but as a Minister of Labour to whom those complaints came and as an MPP to whom those complaints came, they were so few and far between as to be non-existent. The evidence we have had before this committee from most small businesses and large businesses is that they do not have any trouble at all finding a sufficiently large workforce to run their stores on Sunday if they choose to be open.
I like the notion of a common pause day for everyone, if we could get it. If we can only provide it to retail workers, okay, let's only provide it to retail workers. We are giving retail workers the absolute right to say no, and any juggling around or screwing around with the schedule and the full force of the law comes down on the heads of the employers. You are a trade union person and you know that you can enforce that.
So given all of that, why do you want the stores to stay closed, particularly when 75% of the people in the province would prefer for the government just to mind its own business and let them shop if they want to shop or not shop if they do not want to shop or do whatever they want on Sunday?
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Interjection: Or work if they want to.
Mr Sorbara: Or work if they want to work. I mean, hundreds and hundreds and thousands of people see the opportunity to work part-time on Sunday as something that will do them good. The spokespeople for the trade union movement and labour say no, they are not going to be able to work on Sunday. It seems to me that if we implement your thinking, the next thing we would do is to say to Inco, "You can only run your facilities for 40 hours a week because that's the only way we can guarantee that people will only have to work 40 hours a week." Inco workers take up Sunday work and they do it voluntarily and they do it through their collective agreement. Why can we not give the same freedom to the retail sector, particularly with the strong protection that we are giving to any retail worker who does not want to work, the right to book off? Why do we not give that same protection to the steelworker at Inco?
Mr Morin: The first thing I want to say is that we are here talking about the Retail Business Holidays Act, we are not talking about International Nickel, which is a seven-day operation.
Mr Sorbara: But International Nickel is part of the district labour council.
Mr Morin: And the labour council is here and the president of the labour council is a member of 6500. He totally agrees with our presentation. I am sorry, but Inco works a seven-day week. They have two days. It is seven days a week for five days, but they have two consecutive days off every week. They either get Monday-Tuesday, Wednesday-Thursday, Thursday-Friday, Saturday-Sunday, and it is a rotating shift. My father worked for Inco for 40 years before his pension. They have two consecutive days off. The retail business people get Monday off, they might get a Wednesday off, they might get a Thursday off, they might get a Saturday off. They have one day off together, and Sunday.
Mr Sorbara: No, no, the bill that these folks are proposing says that every retail worker shall have at least 36 consecutive hours of time off. Now, I would prefer if they would bring in a bill that guaranteed retail workers 36 hours of work a week. That would be better, but in their wisdom, they are saying 36 hours per week, consecutive hours, off. Is that not a good idea?
Mr Morin: That is a day and a half at best. But they get Monday off and they have to work Tuesday afternoon at 5 o'clock, and that would be legal under our contract.
Mr Sorbara: Do you negotiate premium time for Sunday work for the stores that are opened?
Mr Morin: We sure do, in some of them.
Mr Sorbara: Is that not a reasonable thing to do?
Mr Morin: It is reasonable in some ways if they do open. But at the same time, our people --
Mr Sorbara: But even then you think they should close?
Mr Morin: Our people do not want to work, and when you go in to get a job in the retail stores, what is the first thing the store manager says when you come down? "I'm part-time. I'm going to school and I need a job." He says, "Well, we have openings in this store, but before we hire you, are you prepared to work Sunday?" If you say yes, you get the job. If you say no, you do not get it.
Mr Sorbara: But it does not matter any more, because if you say, "Yes, I'm prepared to work on Sunday," and you are hired on that basis, notwithstanding that, their bill says if you give them notice 48 hours before the start of your shift, you do not have to work on Sunday and the employer cannot jig around your hours, take any disciplinary action or do anything else.
Mr Morin: But I am sorry, Mr Sorbara, he can, because in every contract --
Mr Sorbara: But he cannot. It is against the law.
Mr Morin: Let me finish, please. There is a probationary period in there that says for the first 45 days the company has the right to hire and fire and we cannot grieve it as a union. All the manager has to do --
Mr Sorbara: You do not have to grieve it.
Mr Morin: We cannot grieve it and the manager just has to walk up and say: "I'm sorry, I'm not satisfied with your work. You're gone."
Mr Sorbara: I am telling you, my friend, under their legislation --
Mr Morin: Under their legislation they could not do anything. It is a probationary period.
Mr Sorbara: Under their legislation, even if you have worked one week, you can go to an employment standards officer and, if you are fired, get reinstated with full pay.
Mr Morin: For what?
Mr Sorbara: Within that one-week period, if you are dismissed because you refused to do Sunday work. That is the bill, and that is what we all support.
Mr Morin: But he has not been fired for not working Sunday. The manager has walked up and said to him: "I'm sorry, you've worked three days in my store. I don't like your work. We don't need your services any longer." What rights does he have?
Mr Sorbara: Can I ask you another question? If you had negotiated a collective agreement and 75% of the people in the bargaining unit supported the terms of the collective agreement, you would feel constrained to put that agreement into place, would you not, to accept that agreement?
Mr Morin: Yes.
Mr Sorbara: In Ontario, 75% of the people want the freedom to shop or not to shop, and that 75% includes retail workers, that 75% includes union people and professional people and non-professional people; people from every walk of life would prefer not that all the stores be open but that the stores have the freedom to be open if they choose. Why should we not be implementing in a democratic way the wish of the people in that regard, particularly when the one group of people who are supposed to be protected and given a common pause day -- by the way, this is not a common pause day for steelworkers, this is not a common pause day for real estate agents, this is not a common pause day for media people, this is not a common pause day for the people that have to clean the streets. This is a common pause in this bill only for retail workers, and they have an absolute guarantee of that, and in the terms of the collective agreement 75% of the people say, "Give retail workers an absolute right to a common pause day but let the rest of us shop if we want." Why should we reject that collective agreement?
Mr Morin: First of all, you said 75% of the people. They were asked one question: "Do you prefer to shop on Sunday?" If the question had been put, "Do you prefer to work on Sunday" --
Mr Sorbara: No, no, the question is --
Mr Morin: I am sorry; I never cut you off. I would like to finish my statement first. If the question had been put to the people, "Do you wish to work on Sunday, or do you wish to shop on Sunday?" then we would get the answer and your 75% poll would go down mighty fast.
Mr Sorbara: Let me just advise you that most of the people in the province, in fact every group in the province except for retail workers, are eligible for Sunday work. If they asked me whether I would prefer not to work on Sunday, of course I would prefer to work two or three days a week, but sometimes I have to work on Sunday. I have not asked the government to provide me with the same rights retail workers have. I acknowledge that retail workers should have that. But what I am saying to you is, given that they are guaranteed under this bill the common pause day, why should the rest of the people have to live in a world where all of the stores are closed anyway?
It was the case. The NDP, before it came to power, used to say that the only way to give retail workers a common pause day was to close all the stores. I have read so many Bob Mackenzie speeches on that theme, I get sick to my stomach. But even they, now that they have come to power, say we do not need to close all the stores. All we need to do is protect the workers with an absolute right.
Given that, I ask you once again, why should we be insisting that all the stores close?
Mr Morin: It is the only way to protect the retail workers.
Mr Sorbara: Oh, goodness.
Mr Morin: We do not need in Ontario an American economy.
Mr Sorbara: This is not an American economy.
Mr Morin: We have already proved it in the States. They are open 24 hours, seven days a week, and there is no more money, there is no more business, and people's lives are hell. In Ontario we have a good thing going. Why can we not protect people? The people of Ontario have to be like Americans and shop on Sunday, and I do not think that is true.
Mr Sorbara: My friend, this has nothing to do with American lifestyle.
Mr Daigeler: Mr Sorbara, I think, must have had a good night's rest. He is all worked up, certainly very keen to put forward some very important views.
My question is less direct. I would like to ask you what happened in that interim period, when the Liberal legislation was struck down and there was open Sunday shopping, what was the situation here in Sudbury and in the area? What was your experience?
Mr Morin: The majors all opened up. All the major chains opened up in Sudbury. As a result of that, there was open Sunday and they did business. I would agree with that. But in the long run, what the stores did was, "We're open on Sunday and we have to pay double time, so you have to cut your hours now," so we had fewer people working, not more.
Everybody is standing there and shaking their heads. I am in the stores; I am the business rep. What is coming through from the great big bosses up top in Toronto? "You're using 70 hours on Sunday. That's costing us 140. Cut 70 more hours on Monday to Friday." Those exact words came out of the big business. Those are their exact words: we paid double time. We heard it and we heard it and we heard it. We lost jobs. We would lose full-time jobs and we would have more part-time.
Mr Daigeler: If that is so, that would be an important witness, because we have not heard that before. If you have anything that verifies this, if you can provide that to us it would be very useful.
Mr Morin: There is no way of proving it. You are sitting in the store and you hear the store manager come down: "Cut the hours. I just got a call from head office." Bang, that is it. Sunday shopping, we have to cut our hours. We used 100 hours; we cut another 100 because we had to pay double time.
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Mr Jackson: Just on that point, are you saying that you hear about this but you do not ever record it, so you forget where this occurred? Can you not tell this committee companies that have done this? I guess that was what Mr Daigeler was saying.
Mr Morin: I can say it very clearly. It happened in Sault Ste Marie, it happened in Sudbury, it happened in North Bay, Parry Sound.
Mr Jackson: Those are the cities. What are the companies that did this?
Mr Morin: A & P, Miracle Mart, that I know of. I service them. I cannot say the rest.
Mr Jackson: And what they were doing was actually adjusting the total --
Mr Morin: Adjusting the total. In other words, if they used 70 hours on a Sunday -- I am talking A & P; they had to pay double time -- they as much as told their managers, "If you use 70 hours on Sunday that means it was 140. Cut that many hours off your schedule."
Mr Jackson: Let me ask you a couple of quick questions. First, your brief, whether I agree with it or not, is generally presented well because it is a very easy brief to read, and it is appreciated when you lay out very clearly what your recommendations are. We do not always get that. I want to let you know, for whatever it is worth, it is a well-presented brief.
On your recommendations about the common pause day, it is interesting that you suggest trying to define more what a pause day is. As you also say this is a common pause day for retail workers, why are you not asking us to make this a bill for retail workers and defining a retail worker so that the exemption flows from the worker and not from describing the activities of a pause day -- the non-activities of a pause day, to be exact?
Mr Morin: We mostly agree with what the bill says. We just want to fine-tune the bill so it protects the workers in the best possible way.
Mr Jackson: I am hearing from you, and it is in print, that the protection is not there. Under examination and questioning you still insist that it will not be there.
In my seven years as a legislator, when I have been faced with this kind of difficulty, it generally flows from where we are causing our definition. I find it would be a lot easier to define a retail worker for their personal protection. This is a bill for retail workers. I am having no trouble with that. But the fact is that where we are getting into difficulty is trying to define a pause day and the pause day activities. Why are you not looking at more of a definition of a retail worker to define those who are clearly protected?
Mr Morin: You could go both ways. You could define what a retail worker is or you could define what the retail employees act is. We went the other way. We tried to define what the act would mean and what a retail business would be -- which is a retail person. We just went the opposite way. We tried to define what a retail business would be so that under the act what would be open and what would be closed. I think your question and mine are the same thing. We just went to what a retail business would be. We want to define that very clearly in the act.
Mr Jackson: The second area: You fundamentally disapprove of both the Liberal and the NDP approach to a municipal option in terms of defining this. You feel there should be one strong piece of provincial legislation, period, end of sentence. Is that essentially your philosophical approach? Your brief says you do not support the municipal option.
Mr Morin: We do not support the municipal option if it is only the municipality that has the choice. We want some outside organization that can overturn it. What of the little town?
Mr Jackson: You want an appeal. Do not tip your hand completely; I know you want to turn it over. What you are saying is you want a fair appellant mechanism.
Mr Morin: That is right.
Mr Jackson: Would you consider supporting an amendment that would have an appeal to cabinet?
Mr Morin: That is one point, yes.
Mr Jackson: Since the new government has come on board, we have a whole bunch of these various boards and policing commissions and all that. I doubt we are going to get another one of those. And you certainly do not want to go to the Ontario Municipal Board, due to cost and the time it would take, especially since the activity would be allowed to proceed while the appellant mechanism is under way. I am just going to ask you directly, do you support an appeal to cabinet as a means of fair and arm's-length appeal? Because it is a municipal decision. It is not a provincial decision; it is a municipal decision.
Mr Morin: That is one option that would be open, I would think. There is a lot of talking on this bill, and as I said at the end of our brief in our conclusion, we are prepared to work.
Mr Jackson: There is not an appellant process in this bill now. The government has indicated on several occasions that although it is listening and it is listening well and it is listening carefully, there are not going to be any amendments. One of the areas they might consider amending might be an appeal to cabinet, because it is an amendment which is put right at their feet. Do you know what I am suggesting to you there?
Mr Morin: It would help, yes.
Mr Jackson: Now the cabinet is rejecting an appeal to cabinet. It is not a simple amendment that is arm's length, where they can say, "Somebody else didn't like it" or "We didn't consult with the chambers." They cannot slough it off to somebody else. This is now the government of the day rejecting our amendment which says they can go to cabinet.
Mr Morin: I will be honest with you. I am not up on the fine points of the law in this bill, where the amendments would go. I am looking at what the workers want. When it comes to the fine points of amendments, as I keep saying, the people in our union, our top executive, are more than willing to sit down with the government, with the committees, and iron this out.
Mr Jackson: The municipal jurisdiction over commercial and tourist activities on reserves: Are you aware that all commercial activities on reserves in this province will be covered by municipalities and municipal jurisdiction?
Mr Morin: As I said, I have no idea about the fine points of the law.
Mr Jackson: It is not fine points of the law. It is what we are told that this bill says, that commercial activities for aboriginals in this province are going to be decided now by municipalities, with no appeal mechanism. I am offended by that. I asked the labour councils in Lakehead and Thunder Bay last night, and they were also quite concerned about this. I assume you have representation of some form for aboriginal activities, commercial activities, and their workers.
Mr Morin: Within the Sudbury region, we have no representation of aboriginals at all right now on the labour councils.
Mr Jackson: I am intrigued by your 4,000 square feet. If the retail activities at Science North were 4,000-square-feet-plus, would you expect it to be closed?
Mr Morin: I think you have a red herring. Science North is by no means a retail business.
Mr Jackson: I did not say that: the retail section. There are a lot of tourist attractions that can still stand alone without a retail section, but there are large and growing retail sections, whether it is food service or souvenirs or art galleries. There is a whole series of expansion and opportunity in commercial activities which are occurring as an adjunct and form part of large tourist activities. I was just wondering if you were looking at a more absolute rule here.
Mr Morin: I would have to go back and say the same thing. Science North is a red herring. It is a tourist area, it is well defined as a tourist area and I think it would be one of the fastest to get an exemption to be open on Sunday.
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The Acting Chair: Mr Mills, the parliamentary assistant to the Solicitor General, would like to make a clarification.
Mr Mills: Our legal adviser from the Solicitor General just wanted to clear up something that was a little unclear.
Mr Ceyssens: Just before we go on, I wanted to raise one particular point regarding whether the act would apply to retail businesses operating on Indian lands. The matter arose yesterday very informally in response to a question by the same member and I provided advice as follows.
There was one case, to my knowledge, which has addressed it. That case is a decision of the British Columbia Supreme Court and it is called Regina v Duncan Supermarkets Ltd. Again, I stress that is the only case I am aware of; there may be another case. But what that case decided is that, in the British Columbia version of the Sunday shopping legislation, that did apply to businesses operating on Indian land. Very simply, the way that came up is that a business operating on Indian land was charged and in its defence the business raised the issue that the province did not have the legislative mandate to address businesses operating on Indian reserves. That is it.
Because the BC Supreme Court ruled that way, that does not mean an Ontario court would do the same, if for no other reason than that the Ontario legislation is different. The BC Supreme Court is not binding on Ontario courts. I did offer that case because it offers guidance. It is not binding; it offers guidance. I do not think it could be fairly said that this act does or does not bind businesses operating on Indian lands. What can fairly be said is that in BC the court said that legislation did. If there are any questions flowing from that, I would be happy to answer them.
Mr Jackson: Paul was helpful yesterday when I raised this question with him and with the parliamentary assistant. I was advised very clearly that the presumption in this legislation is that they were included. If in fact we are now hearing today that, to be fair, it is neither in nor out, then clearly that is a problem for the committee and for the government to have the matter clarified. If in fact we are silent, as counsel will advise us, that simply says the courts will decide whether there can or cannot be jurisdiction. The Solicitor General of the day will be put in a dilemma, to go on to reservation lands and charge and then get into an expensive court process. I think we should at least acknowledge that this is a potentially serious matter that should be resolved. If anything, that is clearly part of the committee's mandate. It should not be a shame to the government that it has been overlooked, but it certainly should not accept the fact that it is neither in nor out, which is today's position.
The Acting Chair: I think it has been acknowledged. I think what we should do is proceed, in fairness to our presenters.
Mr Ceyssens: Let me make one additional remark on that. It is an important matter and it should be addressed more than informally at this stage. It would be my respectful submission to the Chair that a formal legal opinion be drafted, for the reason that the committee should not be relying on, if you will, seat-of-the-pants advice at this stage. It is a matter of some importance. It should be in the manner of a formal opinion, and certainly that opinion can be arranged, but at this time it may be preferable to proceed in the absence of that opinion.
Mr Carr: I want to say how pleased I am to be in Sudbury today. Unfortunately, the last time I was here was in 1975 when we beat Sudbury, the year we went on to win the Memorial Cup in the eighth game, in two periods of sudden-death overtime. I hope people will not hold that against me this time around. I do not know if I have too many friends in Sudbury after that.
My question relates to the complaints that are heard with regard to people being forced to work. When he was in, the Labour minister, Mr Mackenzie -- as you know, a very strong advocate all his life of the labour movement -- said that during the period of unrestricted Sunday shopping they had heard 15 complaints that people were forced to work. My question to you is if in fact there are any more in the system. We only heard about the 15 because of the time delays, by the time you go through the procedures. Do you see that increasing substantially over the next little while? If not, in light of the fact that you said you know of lots of cases, why would your union not have taken the opportunity to bring them to this body, as is really your mandate as part of the union? If you are saying that there have been a lot of abuses, why have we not seen it in the actual number of cases? It may be, as I think Mr Fletcher pointed out, that there might be some through the system. Do you see us all of a sudden having 300 that have come through or is it a case of people not reporting them? If they are not reporting them, why would your union not be reporting them?
Mr Morin: You are asking a kid who is between 14 and 16 years old, who is going in to get a job, to come to a union he has never heard of before. He is just hired. He does not really know he is in yet and he walks into the store to get himself a job. He is about this high off the floor. He is scared out of his boots. He is looking for his first job. He is in high school. The store manager or the personnel person in the store, whoever it is, gives him an application form and says: "Here. We are taking applications and we are hiring. But just making a point, if we do hire you, we are looking for people to work Sunday. We really do not need people for anything else." What do you think the kid is going to say? Is he going to say, "Oh, I'm sorry, but I don't believe in working Sundays. I can't do this," and walk out the door and not take the application? He will take the application and say: "I need the job. I'm going to school. I need the money. I'll work any hours you give me."
Mr Carr: What I am talking about is the people who were already hired and, as a result of that, then were forced to work. I guess my feeling is this is a union. Would that scare a person? First of all, he would not be 14, because he could not work.
Mr Morin: Yes, he could.
Mr Carr: He would have to be of legal age. I say the problem would be the union's position should be to go up to that individual and say: "You're very new. This is what your union does for you. These are some of the safeguards. Here are some the things we can do and here are some of the circumstances where we can help you out." If people are scared to come to the union, you have obviously not done a very good communication job. The first thing you should do is clearly communicate to that individual in your union what your union is all about. I admit some people might not know, but certainly that would be the first thing you would do, is say: "This is what we can do for you. We're here to protect you. This is how we can protect you." It would seem either (1) that has not happened or (2) there is not the number of claims of people being forced to work you have made here today.
Mr Morin: I did not say they were forced to work. I said they were asked when they were hired if they could work Sundays. Who would refuse? The same thing with part-time, all right? They got their part-time workers. They have been there for a year. They are getting 16 hours a week at such and such a rate and, all of sudden, we are open Sunday and because there is business on Sunday and, as I just said, the cutbacks, the manager says: "I'm sorry. You don't want to work Sunday, but this week we only have eight hours for you because all these other hours are put on Sunday." What is the part-time person going to say? "Yes, I'll work Sunday." They need the money. It is no choice. These people, some of them, are going to university. Some are going to high school. Some are from broken homes. They have no choice but to work Sunday. It is not a choice of not working. It is a choice of, "Do I want the money or don't I want the money?" They would get the same hours from Monday to Friday if the stores were closed. This is forcing them into working Sundays, and just about every Sunday, to get them hours.
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Mr Fletcher: Thank you for your presentation. I am very pleased to see you here today. As with Mr Carr, it is nice to be in Sudbury again.
Let me start off by going on what Mr Sorbara said. It is too bad that he is not here to hear this, because when he was the Minister of Labour one of his own colleagues, a person who stood beside him while he was the Minister of Labour -- it was Mr Rick Ferraro, who was a Liberal at the time in the government -- publicly stated: "Employees are jeopardizing their jobs by refusing to work. An employer will eventually find someone who is willing to work on Sundays." That is with the Liberal legislation that was there.
As you said, it was flawed then and it is still a flawed piece of legislation. The amendments we are trying to get through are hopefully strengthening the employee protection. As we promised during the election, the New Democrats are committed to a common pause day for workers in the retail sector. We campaigned on that and we are delivering on that promise. That is what we said.
As for the 75% who wish to shop, you really brought this around when you said that if we change the question to how many people want to work on Sunday, it goes around. The stats are saying about 70% are saying, "No, I don't want to work." I agree with you on that part.
As for Mr Jackson saying, "Who is going to do anything like adjust your hours?" if you go to what Loblaws Supermarkets said in 1988 -- and Mr Jackson should have known this -- Loblaws stated, "If Sunday shopping comes in, the work schedules will simply be adjusted for existing employees to compensate for the extra day," again, exactly what you said was happening.
As for 14-year-olds working in supermarkets, they do, and they do it quite often. That is another situation.
Let me get to some of the questions I do have. We have heard from different different people in different areas that Sunday shopping is going to boost the economy. Is that your finding? Do you think that is what is going to happen with Sunday shopping?
Mr Morin: Sunday shopping cannot boost the economy. There is only so much money out there. What do you do? All of a sudden all this money comes into Ontario just for Sunday shopping? There is no such thing. You get the same money from Monday to Friday, Monday to Saturday, as you get from Monday to Sunday. If there is no more money, it is just longer hours, spread-out hours, worse service in the stores -- and I want to put that because there are less people around to work -- and there is no more money into the economy.
Mr Fletcher: As I was saying before, with this piece of legislation what we are attempting to do is not only protect the person working in the store -- that is a priority with us -- we also have a commitment to tourism in Ontario, and that is a commitment with us. I know it is a hard balance to strike. We are trying to strike a balance, and that is something the Liberals and the Conservatives could never do.
Mr Jackson: You have pissed off everybody. You are doing a great job out there.
Mr Fletcher: Do you agree with the statement that Sunday shopping, if closed on Sundays, is going to have an effect on tourism?
Mr Morin: No, it is not. We would like to define what is tourist, but the bill will not hurt tourist business whatsoever.
Mr Fletcher: Again, as Mr Jackson is trying to say, there are no amendments to this. That is what this committee is for. It is to listen to what people are saying, especially working people, because they are the people who are affected the most, people who have to work on Sundays. We recognize that. We are listening to your amendments, what you are suggesting. We are also listening to what tourism people are saying and we are also listening to what the chambers are saying. There are going to be amendments. There will be changes. We cannot just sit around and have a piece of draft legislation and say that is what it is going to be. I think you recognize that, even though some members may not.
I have one more question. If there is no Sunday shopping, are we going to lose all these part-time jobs?
Mr Morin: No. I have to go back to the fact that I service this area. They hired people and they closed Sundays. The same people have in fact hired more since. There have been no part-time jobs lost because of Sunday shopping. We probably have more now.
Mr Fletcher: There is one more statement I must make. We do have a new tourist area. It is called Mulroneyville and it is in Toronto. If you want to see what Conservative economic policy has done to the people of this province, you can go to Toronto any time and take a look at the broken hearts there.
Mr Carr: And pick up your NDP memberships. They are selling them.
Mr Morrow: The brief you gave us was very precise and very good. I want to thank you very much for that. I am also hoping that you can help us clear up something Mr Carr brought up. As chief steward for my local, I know a lot of things we handled on the shop floor would not have gotten to the Minister of Labour. For the Minister of Labour to hear this -- there are 15 complaints. In my process that would mean that there were a hell of a lot more complaints in the stores and on the shop floors. Is that not true?
Mr Morin: True enough. What you get in government is the minority. The complaints are general out there, but can you carry to fruition every complaint? You cannot bring everything to the government. You cannot bring everything down.
Mr Jackson: Even to an NDP Minister of Labour?
Mr Morin: They all cannot get there. It is just impossible. You think the union is God up here, that we hear everything. Some of these members, if we can get in to see them once a month, we are lucky.
Mr Morrow: That is exactly what I am saying.
Mr Morin: He thinks we are in there talking to them every day. We are not. We just cannot be there.
Mr Morrow: That is exactly what I am saying. You must understand that for the Minister of Labour to hear one complaint even, it has to be extreme out there.
Mr Morin: I service the north. I have 2,200 people under contract and I service from Thunder Bay to Bracebridge. It is just impossible to talk to them all.
Mr Morrow: We also understand that 57% of the general public wants Sunday shopping, but we also know, on the other side of that, that over 70% of the people do not want to work on Sunday. Does that concur with your membership?
Mr Morin: That concurs, yes.
Mr Morrow: Or is that higher actually?
Mr Morin: It is even higher. Our people really do not want to work.
Mr Morrow: If you do not mind a question about membership size, what is your membership size, combined total, for Sudbury?
Mr Morin: We have about 1,000 people on contract.
Ms S. Murdock: I want to thank you for coming today. I have a couple of questions actually on your brief from pages 3 and 4. On page 3, under the recommendation for retail business, you are suggesting a 4,000-square-foot allowance, and on page 4, under drugstores, you are suggesting a 2,400 square footage. I am just wondering if there is any particular reason for the difference and how you would justify that difference being allowed under law.
Mr Morin: We are saying that a drugstore is doing most of its business on Sunday. It is not drugs. It is not pharmaceuticals. It is stuff coming out of the big stores. Why should they be allowed to sell it on Sunday? Like Pampers -- they sell Pampers, they sell pop, they sell chips, they sell everything that a major store sells, and what are they open for? They are open because they are a drugstore. They are doing no drug business whatsoever. If you take Herbie's here in Sudbury, you cannot find the drugstore in it. You just cannot find the drugstore in it. You can find the grocery store, but you cannot find the drugstore.
Ms S. Murdock: So you are saying that because they do not specialize in the selling of drugs or pharmaceutical products, they should be reduced as compared to other retail businesses.
Mr Morin: That is right.
Ms S. Murdock: Okay. The second question I have is whether or not you are familiar with the tourist exemption criteria for the retail business under the regulations of the act.
Mr Morin: Not under regulations.
Ms S. Murdock: Because I think it would answer some of your concerns regarding that. Under this legislation, just so you know, a retail business operator, either as an individual or as a group, would apply to make an application to the municipal area. The municipal, unlike the previous legislation that we had, would have to follow certain criteria, first of all, in terms of a geographic region as to whether it conformed to tourism business, and that would be under six criteria. Then, and only then, if it was retail, they would have another four criteria to determine whether or not they were eligible to be open. If they did not meet those criteria, then they would not be allowed to be open, and from your presentation, I was not sure whether you understood that.
Mr Morin: I have not read the act totally, Sharon, no. I have not really done it all.
Ms S. Murdock: Just another clarification on the 36 consecutive hours of not having to work, my understanding was that if I was working on a Tuesday or a Sunday, whatever, till midnight, for instance, that I would not be allowed to be rescheduled to work for at least 36 hours, so that you could not work Saturday and then be given --
Mr Morin: Be back Monday.
Ms S. Murdock: Yes, you would have a full 36 hours from a Sunday shift before you would have to work again. I did not know whether that is what you were saying.
Mr Morin: I was just going with 36 hours, and he said to me 36 hours. I am not up on that part of the law, the technical part, but 36 hours, I would say, if you worked on a Sunday, they could work you Tuesday morning.
Ms S. Murdock: If you worked on a Sunday you would be guaranteed that you would get the Monday off.
Mr Morin: You would only get the Monday off, not Tuesday too.
Ms S. Murdock: No, you would not. But depending on when you got off on Sunday, right?
Mr Morin: With general Sunday shopping, it stops at about 4 o'clock at night -- 4 o'clock, maybe 5, maybe 6 at the latest.
Ms S. Murdock: In the evening, you mean.
Mr Morin: Yes, evening. Then you have already got 12 hours in on Sunday. So you take 24 hours on Monday, and Tuesday morning, you only get one day. That is what I was going by.
Ms S. Murdock: Okay. I thank you very much. I have no other questions.
The Acting Chair: Mr Mills has one point of clarification.
Mr Mills: I have a couple of points I would like to make. I thank you for your presentation. I want everyone here to understand the uniqueness of what we are doing here. There has been some suggestion, perhaps, that our minds are already made up. That is not the case. We are here to listen. Never before, when a bill was put forward, were the regulations put to the public for their thoughts about the draft regulations. This is unique, and I think it sends a message to everybody, the openness of this government and the willingness of this government to listen. I want to impress upon everybody that that is a first, and it is very unique.
Second, I would just like to clear up a query here on page 5, when you talk about the price clubs, the definition of price clubs. It is my understanding that the Attorney General has indicated to me that they fall within the jurisdiction of the act in that they are members of the public who have purchased membership in a public enterprise and are therefore subject to all the regulations this act will provide.
Mr Jackson: Mr Chairman, just to correct the record, I would not want Mr Mills to mislead the public that this is some sort of a unique experience. I can assure you that this is not the first time in Ontario that draft regulations have been discussed by committees, whether they are public or at Queen's Park. I do not know where he is getting his wild-eyed briefing notes from. I understand why he reads them, but it does not --
Mr Daigeler: The 40 kilometres tourism --
Mr Jackson: No, no, that is another issue. I am simply indicating that, first of all, this is the fourth time that a committee has gone around this province on this issue. It is getting absurd. But to suggest that this is the first time in Ontario's history for draft regulations is misleading. That is a function of his briefing note, not his basic understanding of the history of this province. So his briefing note is misleading, and I just wish to suggest that certainly that is not the case.
The Acting Chair: Okay. On behalf of the committee, I would like to thank you for taking time out this morning and giving us your presentation.
Mr Morin: Thank you.
Mr O'Connor: On a point of order, Mr Chair: Cam Jackson stated that he felt Mr Mills was misleading. I believe that is unparliamentary language. I thank him for bringing that up in the record, but the word "misleading," I think, is unparliamentary, and I would like to have that straightened.
Mr Jackson: It does not qualify in committee, first point you should learn. Second is, I clarified the point --
Interjection.
Mr Jackson: No, it can come up in committee. There are absolutely all sorts of efforts recorded --
The Acting Chair: Maybe in the future you could choose your words just a little more.
Mr Jackson: No, I indicated his briefing notes. He is parroting his response that has been prepared for him. I made that clear. He is not purposely misleading us. It is his briefing note which is misleading. I clarified that and I made that very clear. I do not think he intentionally would mislead this committee at all, but he is parroting his brief, and that is why he is with us.
Thanks for giving me the opportunity to clarify that.
The committee recessed at 1114.
AFTERNOON SITTING
The committee resumed at 1330.
SUDBURY AND DISTRICT CHAMBER OF COMMERCE
The Acting Chair: I would like to call this meeting back to order now. Our first presenter this afternoon will be from the Sudbury and District Chamber of Commerce. Would you please come forward. Thank you for being here today. You will be allowed half an hour for your presentation. You can either use the full half-hour for your presentation or you can make a shorter submission and allow time for each caucus to offer some questions and comments. Could you please identify yourself for the record and then proceed.
Mrs Warwick: My name is Jeanne Warwick and I am president of the Sudbury and District Chamber of Commerce.
Mr Chairman and members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today to make this presentation. The Sudbury and District Chamber of Commerce, now in its 96th year of leading and serving the Sudbury area business community, represents over 1,000 businesses throughout the regional municipality of Sudbury or, if you wish, employers. Our membership encompasses both the multinational corporation and the small entrepreneur, but primarily we represent small business, approximately 30% of which are retailers.
I am going to divide the talk up into three areas, starting with tourism criteria. When Bill 115 was introduced earlier this summer, the Sudbury and District Chamber of Commerce was surprised and dismayed to learn that community chambers of commerce and boards of trade were given the responsibility of dealing with applications for exemption under the tourism criteria, paragraph 3(1)4 of the act. The tourism criteria read as follows,
"If there is a chamber of commerce, a convention and visitors' bureau or a similar organization serving the area being considered, a letter indicating that the organization, or if there is more than one of them, one of those organizations, supports the opening of the retail business establishments in that area on a holiday."
The problem with this concept is that chambers of commerce and boards of trade do not see their roles to be that of a regulatory body. There is no, and there is unlikely ever to be, 100% consensus among any city's business community on the question of Sunday shopping. A community chamber of commerce having to decide on local store openings would only foster disharmony among its membership and the business community as a whole.
The likelihood of some members withdrawing support of the privately financed organization, if they are not in agreement with the decision, is a strong possibility. This responsibility could mean the end of an organization that does so much good for the community. To force this unwanted responsibility on to chambers of commerce is totally ludicrous. Rather, this responsibility should remain in the hands of elected officials.
To our knowledge, there had been no consultation with any representative from the Ontario Chamber of Commerce or a community chamber of commerce prior to the implementation of this regulation, which is in direct contravention to the consultative process that has so often been espoused by the current government. As well, the legal implications that could stem from making these kinds of decisions at the local level are not a risk that we are prepared to accept.
Second, holiday shopping: It has long been the position of the Sudbury and District Chamber of Commerce that we are opposed to Sunday shopping. Surveys on this question conducted with our general membership in October 1989 and repeated in March 1991 showed that 70.5% and 56% respectively of the members who responded said no to Sunday shopping.
It is interesting to note that during both surveys the number of members in favour of Sunday shopping did not increase, 29.5% in 1989 and 30% in 1991; rather, approximately 14% of the 1991 respondents were in favour of Sunday hours for certain types of businesses -- for example, pharmacies, tourist attractions and convenience stores; and/or during certain seasonal periods -- for example, Christmas or the summer tourist season.
We feel strongly that there is an essential value in the preservation of a periodic day common to most of society when the maximum number of people are free from their employment requirements to spend time with their family and friends and pursue spiritual, recreational and other needs and goals.
It is our opinion that the legislation, as it existed prior to the June 1991 amendments, sufficiently provided for individual communities' freedom of choice relative to its particular needs and circumstances.
Last, the Employment Standards Act amendments: We believe employees are appropriately protected in current legislation, where they are permitted to refuse Sunday work that they consider unreasonable and refuse work that is in contravention of subsection 2(2) of the Retail Business Holidays Act, work on holidays. We are unaware of any circumstances where employees do not find this current legislation sufficient, and therefore believe that the proposed amendments to this legislation are both unnecessary and inappropriate.
Mr Daigeler: Thank you for coming and speaking to us with the views of your chamber of commerce. we are receiving a different message from your chamber than what we have been hearing so far from the other chambers. Yesterday in Thunder Bay the chamber was arguing for wide-open Sunday shopping, although they too felt the Liberal legislation was the right thing and that we should simply leave it the way it is: that a community that wants to open has the right to do so and a community that wants to stay closed can do that as well, on the basis of their elected representatives. I think that was the principle, much maligned, may I say, during the last election and before by the current government. But perhaps people have now seen the wisdom of this particular solution. I think it respects the differences of opinion on this.
Even in your own chamber I do see a certain shift of opinion. Would you agree that there has been a shift of opinion in favour of not regulating it too much, but leaving it to the different communities and perhaps even to the different store owners to stay open? Have you seen that and observed it?
Mrs Warwick: Yes, and our statistics show that. We had a taste of Sunday shopping over the Christmas holidays and I think a lot of people really enjoyed it. First, what we are objecting to is not being consulted in the first place. Second, if we had been consulted, we are not regulatory bodies, nothing to do with --
Mr Daigeler: With your permission, I would like to come to that point in a second because I think it is a very important one, but just stay on the general question, because your presentation, as it were, is so different from the other business perspectives we have heard so far. The business representatives have been arguing very strongly that, especially in a time of recession, it is almost a necessity for them, a business necessity, a financial necessity, to stay open on Sunday in order to survive. I found that difficult to argue against. Have you heard that here in your community business owners are saying, "We need that extra day in order to make ends meet"?
Mrs Warwick: We represent small business. The small businesses find it so difficult working the long hours, and it is not financially viable for them to hire extra help on Sundays and they just get totally burned out. There are different opinions on Sunday shopping. What we are against is the legislation of who says what places can be open.
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Mr Daigeler: We have had especially some tourism-related businesses or even a Canadian Tire store from Kenora coming to us to say, "Because so many tourists are coming to Kenora, we have to serve them and we have to provide these open hours." Is that not the experience in your community, even though you have quite a few tourists coming here as well?
Mrs Warwick: We have to go by numbers in our survey, and the majority rules. This is what we are speaking about. I am sure towns that are cross-border shopping and towns that cater a lot to tourism would feel very differently about Sunday shopping.
Mr Daigeler: Mr Poirier may want to speak on that consultation question.
Mr Poirier: Pertaining to the vocation, I have always seen Sudbury as having a real, but also an immense, tourism potential. Would you be able to elaborate on how that has fitted in with discussions among your members? What do you see happening for a tourism vocation in the short term or midterm for Sudbury, and may that change the perception of Sunday shopping in Sudbury? Have you discussed this with your members?
Mrs Warwick: Have we discussed this with our members? Maybe Debbi Nicholson, our executive director, could help me out here.
Mr Poirier: Obviously, being an advocate of tourism, having come here so many times in the last 15 years, I have always believed that Sudbury has immense potential. I was talking about this with some Sudbury people last night and they were discussing it. It is really picking up. Where do you fit into that?
Ms Nicholson: Certainly we are advocates of a strong tourism industry here in Sudbury. We have worked hard and long at that over the last decade and certainly have seen a lot of change. Our retail industry, however, does not feel it is necessary for it to be open on Sundays as it now exists. As Mrs Warwick mentioned, we have seen a shift in the statistical results we have been able to compile ourselves, and perhaps in another two, three or five years we will see an even greater shift again. But for the time being the feeling is that definitely we do not need Sunday shopping.
Mr Poirier: Okay, but they are still open to allowing other store owners, even in retail, to open if they wanted to. I may not feel I would like to open on Sunday, but if other retailers in Sudbury want to open, that is okay. Is that what you have heard?
Ms Nicholson: No.
Mr Poirier: So they do not even want others to be open?
Ms Nicholson: That is right.
Mr Poirier: Because they are afraid their opening might influence their market share.
Ms Nicholson: Exactly, and quite often the larger employers, the national companies, for example, do want to open. However, the small business people are forced to open in order to maintain their market share. So it no longer becomes freedom of choice; it becomes a must in order to maintain market share. As Mrs Warwick mentioned, a lot of the very small independent retailers are then working 70, 80, 90 hours a week. They cannot afford to hire additional staff. Their overhead expenses become that much greater because they have another day of the week on which they have to heat and light their building and provide security and so on, so they continue to lose their profitability.
Mr Carr: Thank you for coming here this afternoon. You have covered this question fairly well, but I just wanted to really make sure that members of the government side heard it, and of course the parliamentary assistant has said the government is listening. It is with regard to the situation where the chambers have to become involved. I think this is one of the items where we may see some movement on the government side. We have organizations that have come across saying, and the chambers that have appeared before us so far have said: "We don't want the responsibility. Whatever you do, just keep us out of it." I would just like to reiterate that. Maybe, just for the parliamentary assistant's benefit, you could let him know again that this is probably the number one concern you have with it. Is that correct?
Mrs Warwick: Yes. The chambers were not consulted, and if we had been consulted, we are not a regulatory body, so we are not interested in assuming that position or we are not prepared to accept the legal implications that flow from making these decisions.
Mr Carr: The other question I had relates to the split. We had some of the other chambers come in and give us some data on their polls of their membership. What they did is they also included the retail. There seems to be a real split between those who are in retail within chambers and those who are not. Those who are in retail do not want it in a lot of areas, but the ones who are not in retail see the spinoff effect for their business because people are shopping Sunday and then will go to the restaurants or the other businesses that are involved. Did you see a real split? You did not put the statistics in here, so it might not be something that you were able to quantify. Did you see a real difference in your membership between the retail and the non-retail members on this question of Sunday shopping?
Ms Nicholson: Perhaps I could respond to that. Certainly in the 1989 survey that we did we specifically identified retailers who were responding and other members who were responding. The retail statistics opposed to Sunday shopping were 83%, whereas the general membership was the 70.5%. What we tend to find, though, is that the general member, not the retail member but the general member, tends to perceive the issue as a consumer and as a convenience to them or their spouses or their families or whatever. Sure they would like wide-open shopping, perhaps 24-hour-a-day shopping, who knows? But if they turn around and look at it from a retailer's point of view or if they themselves in their own type of business had to be open, would they want to be? It is a very different question.
Mr Carr: And this time, was the reason you did not do it that you did not want the internal split? It could be very divisive. It is tough keeping members together, and if you break it down and you get sort of a split, it is probably best to take an entire organization. So you want the total numbers, not to get any internal friction. Is that why those numbers were --
Ms Nicholson: We always do it on behalf of the entire organization anyway, because we represent all of our members, not just a certain segment of our members. We did do it this time as well, but I do not have the figures offhand; I would have to check that. I do not want to give you erroneous figures.
Mr Carr: I will leave some time. Thank you.
Mr Jackson: I presume there is a visitor and convention bureau in Sudbury.
Ms Nicholson: Yes.
Mr Jackson: And there is a business improvement area for the core?
Ms Nicholson: Yes.
Mr Jackson: Have you consulted with them about this contentious clause, which embraces them also in terms of -- because it can be any one of you. It does not necessarily have to be all of you.
Ms Nicholson: We have not spoken with the BIA about it at all. I was not aware that the BIAs could be. The legislation does not specify them, it only identifies chambers or CVBs. I have spoken with the lawyer for the city of Sudbury, not with the CVB particularly, and he certainly had some problems with it as well.
Mr Jackson: Yesterday when this matter was raised by two chambers who were before us, I requested that the government provide some sort of written legal opinion, not a rationale for why they have the policy -- that is a policy matter -- but the legal basis in terms of the impact it will have on those agencies named in the regulations. The parliamentary assistant indicated that that would not be forthcoming. It is my intention to approach the new minister directly to see if he would be more co-operative towards the committee. Would you support getting that kind of written opinion from the Solicitor General's office of the legal impact of you assuming the responsibilities as set out in this regulation?
Ms Nicholson: I think regardless of what the legal impact would be, we are there to represent our members. We are a privately funded organization, businesses --
Mr Jackson: I am a member of a chamber as well. I do not need a description of your chamber.
Ms Nicholson: For the rest of the members.
Mr Jackson: I think everybody here knows what a chamber is. What I asked you specifically was, are you and the chambers in this province interested in getting a legal opinion as to what the implications of naming you in these regulations will be?
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Ms Nicholson: I think to have that information would be fine, but I do not think our position is going to change, regardless of what that opinion is.
Mr Jackson: I was not suggesting that it would change your opinion; I was just wanting to save the chambers from engaging lawyers to get written opinions on it when we should know why the Attorney General is recommending it.
Mr Mills: I know we have to look through bodies here, but I am here and I can see the top of your head. Thank you very much for your presentation here today. I just want to say one or two things about the concerns that you have.
My colleague Mr Jackson has voiced some concern inasmuch as the Solicitor General is not forthcoming with an answer. I want to tell you here this afternoon that there are many issues being looked into by the minister and one of those issues is that very issue. So to say that it is not being looked into and it is not being addressed is a little bit off base.
Mr Jackson: On a point of order, Mr Chair: For the record, I did not say that he was not looking into it; I said I wanted to know the legal basis on which he came up with the recommendation and its impact. If the parliamentary assistant is now clarifying that the Attorney General put in the regulation without knowing its legal impact, then that is news to this committee. My presumption was that they did check with their legal department about its implications and I simply want him to share information which the ministry has. That is what I am looking for, Mr Mills. That is what I expect your minister will be forthcoming with.
Mr Mills: I would just like to further add that we have heard your concerns and I understand them, and I want to assure you that there is no intention to put the chamber in the position that has been suggested. This particular clause in the regulation was designed to ensure consideration of representation and participation of a local business association. I should point out as well that the involvement of a local business association pertains to all applications for a tourist exemption. I hope that clarifies this point regarding the involvement of your association, the local chamber, in this regulation. I look forward to hearing how your organization feels it can most appropriately be involved in the process forthcoming.
Mr Carr: Leave them out.
Mr Mills: I hope that clarifies our position.
The Acting Chair: Point of order?
Mr Daigeler: A point of clarification: Could the parliamentary assistant repeat what he has just said? Obviously this is going to be of significance to similar presenters, because the concern has been raised several times. What is the implication and what is the nature of that required consultation? I may be a bit of a slow learner, but since the parliamentary assistant I think is putting forward the official line, I would like to have it repeated, because I did not fully understand it.
Mr Mills: What official line do you want me to put forward? What do you want me to --
Mr Daigeler: On the nature of that consultation that is required, because the way I read the legislation before us, that is very different from the interpretation you just gave, so could you just repeat the interpretation of that clause you have just given?
Mr Mills: This particular clause in the regulation was designed to ensure consideration of representation and participation of a local business association. We are also saying that there was never any intention to put the chamber in the position that has been suggested here, in a legal position. There was never any suggestion that this position was suggested.
Mr Daigeler: It seems to be different.
Mr Mills: It was designed to ensure consideration of representation and participation of a local business association. Further to that, I can only reiterate what I said, that the Solicitor General is looking at this issue along with many other issues that have come up through these hearings.
Mr Daigeler: I think this is obviously going to be an issue that when we come to clause-by-clause we will want to take a close look at, but it is not the position that was put forward yesterday by the legal adviser of the Solicitor General, who indicated that in fact the chambers could be subject to judicial review, in other words, being put before the courts.
The Acting Chair: This is something better dealt with in clause-by-clause. I think in fairness to our presenters, we should continue on. Mr Sorbara?
Mr Jackson: A point of order, Mr Chair.
The Acting Chair: Mr Sorbara first.
Mr Jackson: Does he have a point of order?
The Acting Chair: Yes, he does.
Mr Sorbara: I will just defer to my friend from Burlington if he wants to make a point of order.
Mr Jackson: I clarified this point yesterday for the Chair, and I would just like to make sure that we are consistent on this. We are not doing clause-by-clause on the regulations. We are getting feedback on regulations, but this section is contained also in regulations. So it is not necessarily going to be resolved in clause-by-clause is my understanding.
The Acting Chair: What I was suggesting was that it would be discussed at that time, and in fairness to our witnesses, it would be more appropriately dealt with at that time.
Mr Jackson: With due respect, Mr Chairman, on my point of order, which was really your clarification, the chamber is very vitally concerned about the issue of how it is legally put in this position. We are told that it is only for purposes of consultation. The chambers are saying across this province that they do not buy that. We have also heard from the deputants that the legal counsel of the city of Sudbury has advised them that there are legal concerns affecting it.
I figure that this is an issue which is on the table. If we wish to remove it and revisit it in Toronto behind closed doors, that may be the wish of the Chair, but I think it is perfectly germane to the questions being raised by the deputants, especially in the city of Sudbury, where the municipality's legal counsel and the local business improvement area or convention bureau, whichever group, has had discussions.
Mr Sorbara: Mr Chairman, I think there is no doubt that there would be consensus among lawyers and people who have reviewed the regulation that if the draft regulation remains as it is currently proposed, the legal implications for a local chamber of commerce are very significant indeed. In fact, we heard that on our first day of hearings from the executive director of the Ontario Chamber of Commerce, and he made that point in no uncertain terms.
It appears that Mr Mills is now qualifying the government's position, and I think that is encouraging. I think that is good news. What I would recommend, however, is that, rather than simply suggest a change in the government's position in the context of public hearings, for the sake of all of us, the minister, even though he is new in his job, could make an announcement or issue a press release stating that the government is going to revisit that issue.
There is no doubt in my mind that the chambers of commerce and the convention bureaus in the province cannot assume that responsibility. The legal implications are significant and severe and the cost implications are significant and severe.
It would help us --
The Acting Chair: Mr Sorbara --
Mr Sorbara: If I could just conclude in one sentence --
The Acting Chair: I think the parliamentary assistant has done what he was supposed to do. He has clarified an issue, saying that it was never the government's intention --
Mr Sorbara: If I could just make the point that it would assist us in our public hearings if, as we continue through the province, we could tell representatives of the chamber of commerce that they no longer need to worry about that issue, so that in the limited time we have they would not have to bring forward those arguments.
I am suggesting to you, sir, and to the parliamentary assistant that the government simply needs to issue a press release that that approach is no longer on the table. It will allow us to narrow the focus of these hearings, and frankly, it would take a great doubt off the shoulders of not only the Ontario chamber but the chambers in every single community in the province. So I would ask that the Solicitor General do that and I would ask through his parliamentary assistant, who has been participating for a number of days now and knows the problem.
The Acting Chair: Mr Mills, would you like to address that?
Mr Mills: I would just like to say that the government realizes that there is a legal impact here and we are looking into it. I do not know what you want me to do, other than to say that we recognize it and we are looking into it, and when we arrive at an answer, if we do arrive at an answer, then it will be related to committee members. Right now we are looking into it, and I think that is very good.
Mr Sorbara: If I could just make the point once again, Mr Chairman, there is no doubt that the government is looking into it. It is looking into the entire legislation, and everything, I guess, is on the table, except for the things that he says are not on the table. But that means that for the rest of the public hearings, the chambers have to make the point over and over again. If the government would just say, "We're going to take that off the table," it would ease the burden.
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The Acting Chair: Thank you, Mr Sorbara. If we could continue with the questioning. Mr Lessard.
Mr Lessard: I just want to apologize to you for that brief interruption and also for the fact that your organization did not get consulted. It is something that should have been done before, and it is unfortunate that it was not. I understand that you do not see the role of the chamber in being involved in the process that has been suggested in the draft regulations. Having said that, do you feel there is a role for the chamber in this issue?
Mrs Warwick: No. It is a very dicey issue, and there are so many different opinions on Sunday shopping. I am a perfect example. I love to shop on Sunday, but I do not want to work on Sunday. I work 10 hours a day, six days a week, and I have no time to shop, but there is no way I want to work on Sundays, thank you very much, or pay staff to work on Sunday, because it is not financially viable. This is a real sticky issue.
Mr Lessard: You have surveyed the members of the chamber with respect to this issue, and I notice that in your last survey, when you asked them whether they were in favour of Sunday shopping, the split seemed to be fairly close. Notwithstanding that fact, you make the statement in your presentation that you feel strongly that there is an essential value in the preservation of a common pause day. Notwithstanding the fact that there are some members who are in favour of Sunday shopping, there is a strong consensus that there should be a common pause day; there is support for that principle. Is that correct?
Mrs Warwick: That is correct.
Ms S. Murdock: Actually, I am glad you brought the regulatory aspect to the forefront here. I am just sitting in today, so I have not had the opportunity of listening to the previous presenters, but it is nice to hear that.
In terms of the criteria that are used to determine whether a retail business is or is not a tourist operation, subsection 4(3) is the one you are objecting to. What I am hearing you say is that you would like that subsection removed. But in relation to the rest of the regulations, do you have any thoughts or concerns on the six criteria that are required to determine the geography, whether within that geographic space you are a retail business for tourist operations, and then, after it is determined you have met two of the six, whether you fulfil the four criteria that are required? Does that meet your concerns?
Ms Nicholson: We did not look at those other points in any sort of detail, so we would not be able to give you a quick answer here -- yes, we are in favour or no, we are not in favour.
Ms S. Murdock: I presume you read the whole regulation. When you read it, did anything jump out at you in terms of those criteria to determine whether a business would meet the criteria required under the provincial regulation?
Ms Nicholson: We were not looking at the criteria for which a business would have to qualify at all. Yes, we read through it, but no, we did not examine it at all.
The Acting Chair: Mrs Warwick, Ms Nicholson, I would thank you on behalf of the committee for taking time out this afternoon and appearing before us.
Mr Sorbara: Just a minor point of order, Mr Chairman. Can we find out on whose behalf Mr Lessard was offering an apology to our deputants? Is there something the committee did wrong?
The Acting Chair: On behalf of himself, obviously.
Mr Sorbara: He did well and I thought you did well.
ONTARIO HOTEL AND MOTEL ASSOCIATION
The Acting Chair: I would like to call forward the next presenters, from the Ontario Hotel and Motel Association. Thank you for being here this afternoon. You will be given half an hour for your presentation. You can either use up the full half-hour for your presentation, or you can make it a shorter submission and allow time for questions and comments from each of the caucuses. Could you please identify yourself for the record and proceed.
Ms Dozzi: My name is Melinda Dozzi. I am president of the Ontario Hotel and Motel Association, whose head office is in Toronto, but I happen to reside in Sudbury, where I have resided my whole life.
I am going to introduce my speech in a casual fashion if I can. It is like bringing you into my home and saying, "Oh, my gosh, she's going to bore us," like showing home movies. I am going to tell you a little about myself and my family, because with the group of people I represent, the hoteliers, the motel owners, the tavern workers, the lounge and the restaurant operators in the province, I must speak a bit about myself and my family.
I know you are very interested in the quality of life that people will have if they are forced to work on Sundays. Coming from the background I come from, I have seen my family work in this industry for many years. My family has been involved in the hospitality industry since 1937 in the city of Sudbury -- 54 years in business.
My father started with the first small hot dog stand in Sudbury -- we used to call it the Milk Bar -- with a grocery store and gas tanks. He worked long hours, as did my mother. I grew up in this industry. I have a brother and a sister who are still in the industry, my brother residing in Alberta and my sister being co-owner of the business we have in the city of Sudbury.
My dad remembers when wieners from Schneiders were 17 cents a pound and relish cost 48 cents a gallon and was stored in wooden barrels. His first cash register was a cigar box, and his biggest customers were the weary and very hungry men coming off the afternoon shift, 4 to 12, at the International Nickel Co of Canada, because our establishment was on what was known at one time as the Copper Cliff Road.
The grocery store we had was open to convenience customers, and I remember as a child hearing people bang at the door at all hours of the day and night asking for a loaf of bread or a pound of butter. I very well remember that during the Second World War, my dad was sick and my mother was pregnant and she was up at all hours of the day and night, sometimes at 5 or 6 in the morning, with the gas pumps, giving gas to the miners who were on their way to work, or sometimes they happened to be travellers.
We were all raised and educated in good schools, given a Christian education. Family and friends have worked for us over the many years we have been in business, and still do. Our family has employed many young people who have resided and still reside in Sudbury and others who left Sudbury a long time ago.
I went on to university, resided in London, Ontario, and graduated from there, and I taught high school for 17 years. So I have not been strictly in this industry all my life.
I recall, when I was a child, that many times my parents had to work on Saturdays, Sundays, but my father and mother always found time to take us, in the middle of the week perhaps, on Wednesday, Tuesday, Thursday, camping or hunting or fishing, whatever it might be.
There have been so many issues that have faced this industry over the years, and I feel Sunday shopping is one of the issues facing us right now. I recall in 1952 that my parents were interested in putting beer, liquor and wine into our dining room. We could not do that. It was against the law then to have beer, wine and liquor in dining rooms in Sudbury. Then, it was just the men's beverage room and the men and women escorts, or whatever it was, on the other side -- I have to be careful.
Mr Sorbara: Ladies and escorts.
Ms Dozzi: I remember in Sudbury that in order to do this we had to go to plebiscite. Several hoteliers, along with my dad, put up the money to go to plebiscite, and we had to build 16 motel rooms in order to get a licence in 1952. We never wanted to get into the hotel business, but he was forced to in order to get beer, wine and liquor sales in our establishment.
I remember in Sudbury when we were closed on Wednesday afternoons. No retail outlet was open in Sudbury on a Wednesday afternoon. Now we are open on Wednesday afternoons. At that time, it was a big issue: "You can't open Wednesday afternoons. We have to have Wednesday afternoon off to go bowling, to go skating, to do whatever -- play bingo." No one thinks about this any more. Do you ever go to a community which is closed on a Wednesday afternoon? It was in Sudbury. It was a big issue in those days about opening Wednesday afternoons.
I remember the big issue of Sunday movies. It was a no-no to go to the movies on a Sunday. Now on a cold winter afternoon, especially when you live up in this part of the world, other than staying home, I suppose, and being a couch potato and watching TV, etc, people go to movies on Sundays.
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Mr Sorbara: Just ask Pee-Wee Herman.
Ms Dozzi: That was not fair. There was an item on the news this morning saying he is going to be hired in that type of theatre. Poor guy.
Anyway, back to where I was. I must say, because of the previous speakers, that the hotel association of Sudbury and the hoteliers and the owners of the licensed and unlicensed establishments are not supporting the chamber of commerce view that we are against Sunday shopping. Therefore, when they say they represent the members of the chamber of commerce, they really do not, because they are not representing our association, and we have many hotels and motels. We have nine full-service hotels in Sudbury and no one agrees with the stance they may have taken that they are against Sunday shopping. All our hotel members in this community are supporting the stance of the hotel association.
Just before I came in here, I was talking to one of the hoteliers, who has just returned from a trip to England and Ireland. He said that in England and Ireland now everyone is open on Sundays. Do you know why? The economy is so bad that they have to work on Sundays and they are glad to work on Sundays, especially in built-up tourist areas.
Just as an aside, and I want to tell you this has nothing to do with Sunday shopping but is something you should think about: I just left my property, and I had 37 people in for lunch from Southwest Tours in Madison, Illinois. The tour guide would not stop talking about how expensive it has been travelling in Ontario. Her name is Laurel Johnson. In fact, I am going to fax her tomorrow and ask her to send me a critique of her trip and where she has been. That is all she talked about, how expensive the food was and the accommodations and things in general in Ontario.
She said: "When you talk to these people, when you mention the price of your buffet or your salad bar, whatever it is, please don't say anything about 15% service charge, GST, PST, because it confuses them totally and they don't want to hear it. Say to them: `We have a set menu' or `We have a set price,' and that's it. Please don't introduce all these other issues, because it confuses them thoroughly." She said it was so bad that they have had to stop at several banks along the way and let people get extra money out. Because this was their last stop before they moved into Sault Ste Marie, Michigan, they were digging deep into their pockets to spend every little coin they had in Canadian money. They did not want to take it back with them, and they were asking my cashier for change in American money. They did not want any Canadian money left in their pocket. I realize it is not Sunday shopping, but it is something we should think about. It is sort of scary.
Now for the more formal presentation I have, because I must speak for the members of the hotel association in this city and also in the province.
Tourism is the lifeblood of this industry, but by continually heaping restrictions on what is already an era of economic uncertainty the government succeeds in cutting off that supply of blood. I respectfully request that members of the standing committee on administration of justice consider the following: That Ontario encourage tourists and visitors by having unrestricted retail shopping on Sundays and holidays in all areas throughout the province as the market dictates without any restrictions.
The Ontario Hotel and Motel Association is in favour of unrestricted Sunday and holiday shopping. We feel that unrestricted Sunday and holiday shopping is vital to the economy and the tourism industry throughout the province. In a market-driven economy such as ours, consumers should be allowed their freedom of choice to decide which retail businesses and establishments they wish to patronize. The open and free market should be the final arbiter as to whether retail businesses function on Sundays and holidays.
While respecting the employment standards, unfair and inequitable legislative restrictions are the worst form of economic blackmail in a free market economy.
As well, Ontarians should have the unrestricted right to work, earn incomes and profit from the production and sale of goods and the provision of services any day of the week. Economic prosperity generated in a free and unrestricted economy would benefit all Ontarians and their quality of life.
Retail shopping is an integral part of the tourist experience and represents a significant portion of the value of all tourism expenditures in Ontario. Most retail shopping, dining out, touring, sightseeing and recreation take place on weekends. Shopping has become a family outing, and the majority of Ontarians and visitors favour retail shopping on Sundays and holidays.
As I was leaving my place of business to come here, one of my staff said to me, "Tell them I work a lot and I really miss shopping on Sundays."
The popularity of cross-border shopping shows that Canadians will travel south, not only because they perceive the products to be cheaper, but also because the ease of access to these goods is enticing. Whatever happened to "Buy/shop Canadian?"
This industry is the largest private sector employer and in the service sector it accounts for 70% of all new jobs. Tourism is responsible for the creation of 32 full-time jobs for every $1 million in tourism expenditures. We employ professionals, skilled and unskilled, and we are the largest employer of women, youth, aboriginal peoples and visible minorities. There is no other employer capable of this range of employment opportunities for permanent or part-time employees of professional service staff, college or university educated and the uneducated.
Tourism is one of the nation's largest generators of personal income, corporate, property, business and sales tax to all levels of government. The closures of retail businesses on Sundays has meant job losses to many, especially students who rely on this income for their schooling.
Our members throughout the province are reporting a large drop in business. They strongly feel that the availability of Sunday shopping will alleviate slightly the slumping economy. Of our members surveyed, 75% have said that closing the stores on Sundays has meant a decrease in revenue.
We recognize that other factors have also contributed to the decrease in revenue, but feel that the freedom of choice to open and work at retail businesses on Sundays and holidays is a means to reverse this problem.
This revenue means survival to quite a few and unless retail shops are allowed to open on Sundays to draw tourists and visitors to their respective areas, many will have to close their businesses. Obviously, the hardest hit areas are the border cities. Ontario will remain uncompetitive and continue to lose billions of dollars' worth of annual tourism sales unless we change and allow unrestricted Sunday and holiday shopping.
The hospitality industry today is faced with many obstacles and increased operating costs. In order to remain competitive and recapture some of the lost business from our neighbours to the south, we must have the ability to compete on a level playing field. Bordering American cities are wide open for retail business on Sundays and holidays. The value of the Canadian dollar, we know, is out of line, and works against Canadians. Americans do not assimilate dollars to dollars. They can assimilate dollars to pesos, dollars to lire, dollars to francs, but Americans on the whole have a hard time assimilating dollars to dollars.
The ministers can say as often as they want that the 10% or 15% premium on the American dollar helps tourism and helps bring travellers and tourists into Ontario and into Canada in general, but this is not so; 10 cents does not mean a great deal.
Most Ontarians cross-border shop for less than a day, on the weekends, with the largest volume of traffic on Sundays. Sunday shopping should be unrestricted in Ontario to permit -- excuse me, I am repeating myself -- a level playing field, an unrestricted freedom of choice in the marketplace.
While Bill 115 has some merit and we appreciate the Ontario government's recognition of the value and importance of tourism in this legislation, we do however feel that interpretation of the tourism criteria would create a lot of confusion, not to mention an administrative nightmare in time and cost.
To limit the timing for municipalities to declare themselves as tourist areas is also too restrictive; circumstances could, and most likely would, change at a later date. Municipalities and chambers of commerce do not need this responsibility and they do not deserve it. It is not fair.
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The concept of a common pause day in Ontario is outdated and discriminatory. Multicultural Ontario in the 1990s is populated with every religion and ethnic background, and to allow one faith, belief or ethnic custom to dictate the lifestyles of everyone is wrong.
In our contemporary society Ontarians work at all hours of the day and night throughout the week. Hotels, hospitals, transportation, just to name a few, all must work on a 24-hour, seven-day-a-week basis. While some people rest, others conduct business and provide services. Their professions are a necessity in any community and I do not believe their quality of life is diminished by their work schedules.
We must provide these products, experiences and services to our customers when they want them or risk losing them to other, competing jurisdictions.
To stimulate tourist activity in northern Ontario and thus utilize the region's most readily available non-depleting industry as an economic generator, northern Ontario must be perceived as a major destination by potential visitors, both domestic and foreign. Tourism is an increasingly important sector in northern Ontario, particularly for those communities lacking any major resource industry.
I was in Niagara Falls not too long ago to meet our director and our people there. They were lamenting greatly in Niagara Falls, as you well know, because of cross-border shopping, although people who live in Niagara Falls and St Catharines have been cross-border shopping for years. Now it is the extra people who are going across the border to shop.
Our director there said to me, "It used to be that Niagara Falls was the tourist destination in Ontario." Now every single town, big or small, whether it is Dryden, Kenora, New Liskeard, Kapuskasing, Elliot Lake or wherever, wants to be a tourist-oriented community. You never thought before: "I'm going to go on a holiday. I'm going to go to this wonderful little tourist community of New Liskeard." Now everybody wants to get in.
This business must be important because every community -- Sudbury has just spent a fortune campaigning to promote itself as a tourist destination. There is not a single little town anywhere in this wide province of ours that will not say, "I want to be a tourist destination." Go to any community, big or small, they are not going to say, "We do not want to be called a tourist destination." Go to Lake of the Woods, go anywhere you want. I represent these people, 26 zones across the province, from Kenora, Dryden, Lake of the Woods to Kingston, Windsor, the whole gamut, and no one says they are not tourist-oriented or a tourist destination.
I want to mention another thing that I think might be interesting for you to know. I just came back from a Calgary meeting of the Hotel Association of Canada. The big issue was not Sunday shopping, because in Calgary stores are open from 12 to 5 every Sunday. The big issue with the hoteliers of Canada is rising taxes and that type of thing, which we feel is hurting the industry tremendously, whether it is a federal, provincial or municipal tax.
We were on a shuttle bus coming down from the Banff Springs Hotel into the centre of Banff and there was a young Japanese girl on the bus. We were talking to her; she brings a group of Japanese from Vancouver every single week during the summer months into the Banff-Lake Louise area. We asked her: "What do the Japanese really want to see when they come to Canada? What cities do they want to see?" I was shocked at her answer: Vancouver, Banff and Lake Louise, Niagara Falls, and Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, because of Lucy Maud Montgomery. They want to see where Anne of Green Gables came from, especially since they took the show to Tokyo -- by the way, the young lady who played the lead was a Sudbury girl; I want to tell you that.
I was really surprised. I never thought of Prince Edward Island, Charlottetown and that area. Not Toronto, because it is a big city and Tokyo is a big city. Not Montreal, because Paris is a big city and many Japanese have been to Europe. So they are not interested.
Those were the designated areas for her group, and she brought one busload a week into the Banff-Lake Louise area.
I was hoping she would say Sudbury, but she did not. On most summer weekends, it is not uncommon to find 300,000 vacationers among northern Ontario's roughly 800,000 residents. Tourism is northern Ontario's third largest industry and it provides numerous employment opportunities. This year, of course, our numbers have not been attained.
The north offers a great deal of promise for tourism, and through proper promotion, tourism in northern Ontario can offer world-class wilderness and outdoor vacation opportunities. The best potential for tourism lies in the non-resident pleasure travel market. The key to success is northern Ontario's ability to develop long-range plans to permit local tourist operators to plan for the future and sell northern Ontario. Without the proper transportation and upgrading of amenities, northern Ontario's ability to capitalize on the world's largest and fastest-growing industry may be lost.
Sunday shopping should not be restrictive. We should give visitors every opportunity to shop. We must service our tourists.
We appreciate that the proposed amendments to section 11b of the Employment Standards Act recognize the operating realities of our industry. It is most important that all employers retain the right to schedule work and dictate work schedules. It has been reported that out of more than 10,000 inquiries and complaints registered with the employment standards branch of the Ontario Ministry of Labour in 1990, fewer than 15 were related to the right of retail workers to refuse to work on Sundays and holidays. Just let it happen. In a couple of years, you will not even think about it.
In closing, I ask that you bring Ontario forward into the 21st century so that we become once again the province to lead. We have a tendency to live in the past, remembering how mother was at home in the kitchen and how the smell of fresh baking greeted us as we returned home from school. But we all know times have changed and we must also change, not only to keep up with the times but to take the leadership role in a changing society. We always remember the good things in the past, but we also remember that change is good and change is what keeps us alive.
What happened when stores were allowed to open on Sundays? Has the public been asked, both workers and shoppers? We have to grow up. We will always want what our memories think is best, but does that mean we hold back progress? We are constantly being told that we live in a free world where we have the freedom of choice, but legislatures are continually trying to take this from us. The freedom of choice to open retail outlets on Sundays is not a luxury but a necessity. To many it will mean survival.
Mr Poirier: Melinda, I guess if they leave it up to you, Sudbury is just going to be invaded by the Japanese and all of the Orient, with your determination.
There is an interesting difference between the chamber of commerce and your position. What do you see in the near future if you look in your crystal ball? What do you see for tourism in Sudbury in the coming few years and what do you see evolving in Sudbury for Sunday shopping?
Ms Dozzi: For Sunday shopping?
Mr Poirier: Based on what is going to happen to the tourism sector in Sudbury. What do you see?
Ms Dozzi: I just see what I said before, if you let it happen without all this fuss and bother. Everything that happens with us now becomes an issue. It is always an issue. We have to speak. Just let it happen without all the fuss and bother. If you let it happen and let it happen quietly, it will just happen. In a few years, you will look back and you will think to yourself, "Why would we make this much fuss?"
I know that so many people in labour and so many people within your group are concerned about the quality of life of families and children. There are people who stay home seven days a week and are probably the worst parents and grandparents that you could ever find. They are the ones you have to be worried about.
I do not have a crystal ball, I cannot foresee this, but I think if you just let it happen -- like opening stores on Wednesday afternoons -- you will never remember that we were not allowed to open on a Sunday. I know, just travelling the little bit that I have. I am sure there is not one of you sitting around this table who has not travelled and gone into a store somewhere in the States, somewhere in another country, and shopped on a Sunday. I cannot believe that anybody would say to me, "I have never shopped on a Sunday."
Mr Carr: Thank you very much for a wonderful brief and for making it so exciting. One of the questions I have is this: We have gone around the province so far, and municipalities, for example, Collingwood, have voted 9 to 0 to take the tourist exemption; 5 to 2, I think, up in Thunder Bay.
Ms Dozzi: To take it?
Mr Carr: To take the tourism exemption and be open on Sunday. Windsor is now saying it wants to open because of the cross-border situation; Collingwood will open and Thunder Bay. It will be a snowball effect. I would be interested, particularly as we have the parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Labour here, if you could give us some guidance on how to protect the workers. This morning we heard from the two labour groups that were in that there is no protection, that the existing law does not protect them and that employers will get around that. We heard from business groups across the province in some of our other submissions say, "We don't want people working on Sunday if they don't want to because if they go into the store and their chins are down to the floor, it hurts sales." I want to see, as somebody who has had experience with that, how you and your group see making sure that those who do not want to work because of religious reasons or whatever can have that, while balancing the rights of the employer. How would you see that working? Is there any guidance you can give?
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Ms Dozzi: You know how we are encouraging community colleges, universities to incorporate the hospitality program into their programs, whether it be at a community college or a university like the University of Guelph. When they go to school to be trained and to learn they realize if they are going into this field that we are open 24 hours a day, if you have a hotel, and we are open 364 days a year. Some, the larger properties, hotels like the Holiday Inns, the Sheratons, are open 365 days of the year. When you apply for a job within our industry I think you realize this is the kind of job where you are going to be asked to work perhaps Monday to Sunday, etc. Within the industry, it has not very often happened because of a religious reason, because then what do you do with Saturdays with Jewish people? That is their day, so there would be a lot of stores, etc.
What happens normally is that when someone requests a day off because they are going to a wedding, they have a baptism, they have a bar mitzvah, they have whatever, I do not think employers are that unfeeling. They would not be employers very long if they said, "No, you absolutely cannot do that." Given that a lot of people who work for me who are of ethnic background, foreign background, when they have a wedding or a baptism, even if I said to them, "Please work," they would say, "No, I'm going anyway." So you have to work around that. But as a fair employer -- and as I say, if you are not a fair employer you would not be in business a long time -- I think you grant people. In our industry if there are people who need days off to go to doctors, to go with their family, to do that, they request it in writing a week or so ahead, sometimes a month ahead, and say: "I definitely need those special days off. May I have them?" If something is horrendously wrong that you cannot, you sit and you speak with them and you talk to them and you talk one on one. "Could you do me a favour, even if you come in in the morning for a few hours, because I have a wedding, I have a banquet."
How would you like to walk into one of our establishments and hear: "Well, your daughter's wedding meal isn't ready. My staff went home. I haven't got a staff to feed you." Why is it so different in our industry and why are they so special? If you go into a wet restaurant and a waitress is not smiling at you, is not happy with you -- I just heard the liquor control board chairman speak, Andy Brandt, and he gave a whole list of why the hotels and some of the restaurants are not succeeding. He did not talk about LCBO so much. He talked about the fact that within the province there are so many restaurants where you walk in and the staff have their faces to the ground. He does not like to eat there. You hate that yourself. You do not want to go in a restaurant and wait five minutes for a cup of coffee, but you will go to Eaton's and shop and wait half an hour or search for somebody to wait on you because they have cut down their service staff so much because things are tough and the economy is hard.
Mr Fletcher: Thank you for your presentation. Your argument was going along that with Sunday shopping we could decrease cross-border shopping and with Sunday shopping we could increase the number of people being employed and yet, when I look at the Ministry of Tourism and Recreation statistics for 1990, when we had six months of Sunday shopping, Ontario resident travel to the USA was up 21% and the average monthly employment was down by 4.7% for accommodation and it was down 7.5% for food and beverage and that was with --
Ms Dozzi: Could you please tell me what months were they in, though?
Mr Fletcher: I just have them for 1990, but that was six months --
Ms Dozzi: Under the Liberal government we opened on Sundays, so it brought us through the winter months, and in the winter months --
Mr Fletcher: No, the law was struck down in June of 1990. So you had June, July, August, September, which were probably the peak months for tourism in Ontario.
Ms Dozzi: I am not saying that all of a sudden because our stores were open on Sundays it was going to create an influx of visitors. What I am saying to you is that when they come in, do not give them one more thing to go away from Ontario to criticize.
Mr Fletcher: But the total travel in Ontario from all origins increased by 18.4%, so there was an influx of tourism in Ontario in 1990 during open Sunday shopping.
Ms Dozzi: But I do not think they came to Sudbury or Ontario just to shop, Mr Fletcher.
Mr Fletcher: Okay. What I am also saying is that primary commercial accommodation stays in hotels were up by 53.6% in Ontario.
Ms Dozzi: In this year?
Mr Fletcher: For 1990, during the time that there was open shopping, and yet, what I am saying is that employment was down in two sectors and also the increase in cross-border shopping was up. Tourism increased and Ontario residents increased their travel in the province during that time in 1990, when there was wide-open shopping for six months and everyone said it was great and you just said that it is going to increase employment and we are also going to stop cross-border shopping. In fact, it is not showing that.
Ms Dozzi: Nothing is going to stop cross-border shopping, because cross-border shopping is something that has become ingrained in a lot of people and they --
Mr Fletcher: But in your presentation you said Sunday shopping will --
Ms Dozzi: Will help. I am not going to say 100%. Nothing is going to do it 100%.
Mr Fletcher: Right. And the employment figures do not add up, that when there is open Sunday shopping you are going to increase employment, because we did have it and tourism did increase. As I said, it was up 53%, where people were staying in accommodation, and yet in those sectors the employment opportunities went down and people were being laid off.
Ms Dozzi: Like I say, I do not have a total explanation for that and I cannot say that all those figures and where they were based from and what months in employment, etc.
Mr Fletcher: This is coming from the research policy branch of Tourism and Recreation. Thank you.
The Acting Chair: Ms Dozzi, on behalf of the committee, I would like to thank you for taking time out this afternoon to come and give your presentation.
Before I call the next presenter, I would like to take note that one of the councillors for the city of Sudbury, Mr Ray Bonin, has been here this morning and this afternoon. I would like to thank him for his interest in this committee and taking the time out.
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A&J HOME HARDWARE
The Acting Chair: I would like to now call on the presenter from A&J Home Hardware. Thank you for being here this afternoon. You will be given half an hour for your presentation. You can either use the full half hour for your presentation, or else give a shorter presentation and allow time for questions and answers from each of the caucuses. Could you please identify yourself for the record and then proceed.
Mr Michel: Mr Chairman, members of the standing committee on administration of justice, my name is Arnel Michel. My wife and myself operate an independent hardware store in this community. I have several points I think are valid to this committee.
Several large chains want to open Sundays because it puts more dollars in their coffers. They themselves would not be working on Sunday and do not really care about the employees who will have to. I feel if parents do not spend some time with their children, particularly on Sundays, who will teach them that life is more than television, alcohol, drugs and the streets? I was happy to see a new government in Ontario that seemed to have the guts to govern. Now I see it is bending to get support from the big guys, like the other parties did.
Of my staff of 14 people six said they will not work on Sundays, four are not fussy of the idea and four did not care. Unfortunately, my people with knowledge are the ones who will not work. Many will say, "Hire more staff for weekends." They do not realize how long it takes to learn how to help customers to fix their faucets, with the pump problems, their plumbing, electrical, their fertilizer and insecticides and other things. Sunday part-timers could not look after their needs. So many of the same people who would like this Sunday shopping would be very, very unhappy if they could not get the service in our stores.
I visited six independent confectionery stores in my area. They tell me their Sunday sales dropped from 20% to 40% when the large chains were open on Sundays last year. These stores do one third of their week's business on Sunday. We need these corner stores when an unexpected visitor drops in and we need a loaf of bread or a quart of milk. If we do not give them some protection, many will have to close and we will have more people on the unemployment lists. I am a great believer in family life and think Sunday should be a common pause day. Sunday should be a day for the family to relax together at camp or each his own way. Being a churchgoer, as many people in our community are, I noticed that Sunday is the day when all churches hold their services. I think that is something we have to keep in consideration.
Working Sundays as well as the six other days of the week will cause many of our independent retailers, retail people to burn out. A local psychiatrist tells me that 4% of the patients at our local psychiatric hospital are there because of burnout caused by tension and working too many hours. Our community, as others, has only so many dollars to spend and Sunday openings will cause more inflation, as prices will have to go up to pay for the extra help, the extra hydro and the extra other things that our business will have to pay. We will also be less competitive with the United States because inflation will bring our prices up.
My recommendation is for the government to do its job. They should not pass an important issue like Sunday shopping to the municipalities or any other group. In the Sudbury district we have several municipalities in a 15-mile radius. What I see happening is one council allowing seven-day shopping, then all hell will beak loose and we will no longer have control. If we deal properly with part I of this law, part II will not be a problem. It will pretty well look after itself. Thank you.
The Acting Chair: Thank you. That leaves about six minutes for each caucus.
Mr Sorbara: Thank you, Mr Michel. I just noted in your brief that you said in paragraph 5 that Sunday is the day that all churches hold their services. I am sure you would perhaps want to qualify that for members of the Jewish faith --
Mr Michel: Maybe I should say that most churches hold their services. I never realized that those of the Jewish faith had their services on Saturday instead of Sunday.
Mr Sorbara: And those of the Muslim faith have their holy day as Friday.
Interjection: Seventh Day Adventists too.
Mr Sorbara: The Seventh Day Adventists, yes, have their services on Saturday. I am wondering whether you feel that any store should be open on Sunday. You support the convenience store, I take it: 1,200 square feet, milk, bread, cigarettes, coffee?
Mr Michel: Yes, I think the convenience store should be open because there always are cases when you need something. Sure, you will pay 10 cents or 15 cents more for the loaf of bread but you are not there every day doing your shopping. That is a large portion of our people who have to have jobs and they are in private business and they pay a lot of taxes to the province and I think they have a right to be in business. I think there have got to be some drugstores, and the tourist business. Some restaurants and some people in the tourist business have to have the motels and some stuff like that.
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Mr Sorbara: In theory I tend to agree with you that it would be nice if we could design a society where there was basically no commercial activity for a day. That would be, in my view, an optimal in society. The unfortunate problem is that when we get into deciding that some can remain open, then the government starts picking the winners and losers. Just take your business as an example. This law is going to allow garden centres to remain open on Sunday. Why should you not, if you chose to, have an opportunity to sell garden hose and lawnmowers and potted plants and pots for plants and all of the paraphernalia that goes with good gardening? Why should you not be allowed to compete if those facilities are going to be open?
Mr Michel: They have been open all along. They are classed, because they have perishable goods, that they can. I do not think it is ideal but --
Mr Sorbara: Now we find drugstores that are staying open and they are selling tools and, my God, chainsaws and all sorts of things -- another part of what is, at least in traditional terms, your market. Those are the goods that you sell.
Mr Michel: I see that. I understand the beer stores are going into the hardware business.
Mr Sorbara: The beer stores are going into the hardware business?
Mr Michel: They sell glasses. They are going to sell all kinds of things in Ontario. That is government-owned; I think they should stay in the beer business and not be in these other businesses.
Mr Sorbara: My problem, and the reason I would advocate that we let the marketplace deal with this and allow you to stay open or remain closed as is your choice, is that it is so terribly difficult for government to pick the winners and losers in the Sunday marketplace. How are we to resolve that? Should the garden centre and the drugstore be allowed to stay open, and at the same time the government require you to stay closed, if they are selling your line of products?
Mr Michel: It is a very hard one to solve. If you want to see a relaxed place, travel a little bit through the Scandinavian countries. I visited Norway, Sweden and Finland and all stores and almost all restaurants close at 5 o'clock on Friday night and they open on Monday morning because Saturdays and Sundays everything is completely closed except for a few tourist outings. People do not want to work and it is their day to go skiing. There is a lot of skiing and stuff like that. But they have been doing it for hundreds of years and are very successful at it.
Mr Sorbara: That is of course what the government would like: sort of the Scandinavian model where only stores that promote or maintain tourism should be allowed to remain open. But when you start to look at the law, just about anything could stay open and could compete with your business. Under those circumstances, do you still agree that the government should have the power to require you, as a traditional hardware store without a tourist market or a drugstore market or a garden centre market, to remain open? My view is that we will not be like a Scandinavian country, and therefore if you choose to open on Sunday, the state should not interfere with that right.
Mr Michel: I feel there must be some way they should govern what each business is selling. If they are going way overboard in what they are selling and the types of products they are selling, then they should be told, "Hey, if you want to be open, you shouldn't be selling this type of product."
M. Poirier : Monsieur Michel, on souhaite à Sudbury qu'elle devienne une vocation très touristique, parce qu'on sait très bien que le secteur touristique peut vraiment influencer le secteur économique d'une ville. Supposant que le secteur touristique de Sudbury est de beaucoup rehaussé ; est-ce que vous voyez, dans un proche avenir, que les commerces vont subir une pression encore plus haute à ouvrir à cause de l'évolution du secteur touristique?
M. Michel : Je ne le crois pas. Pour une chose, je crois que notre plus grosse attente, la plus grosse chose pour le secteur touristique à Sudbury, c'est Science-Nord. Je trouve que c'est un défaut qu'ils ferment les portes à cinq heures du soir. Quand beaucoup de gens viennent l'après-midi, ils aimeraient rester plus tard pour voir les choses ; il y a tellement de belles choses à voir là. On n'est pas ouvert parce qu'on ne veut pas travailler ces heures-là. Mais on voudrait que tous les magasins soient ouverts à toute heure. Plusieurs de mes clients m'ont dit, «Vous devriez être ouvert jour et nuit». La chose que j'ai trouvé la plus drôle c'est que parmi ces gens-là, 30% des gens retraités voulaient qu'on soit ouvert jour et nuit. Pour eux c'est comme un hobby, aller marcher dans les magasins ; ce n'est pas une nécessité, mais eux autres n'ont que ça à faire. C'est comme un babysitting system pour ces gens-là qui ne savent plus où aller.
M. Poirier : Donc vous ne voyez pas de grands changements, même si Sudbury était appelé à vraiment développer son tourisme ? Vous ne verriez pas une pression sur vous et sur d'autres magasins de détail pour avoir des heures plus longues, y inclus le dimanche ?
M. Michel : Je ne le crois pas. Ils ont six jours par semaine puis les soirs, alors il n'y a que le dimanche, et il y a tellement de choses qu'on peut faire. On a tellement de beaux lacs et de parcs. Il y a tellement de quoi faire ici à Sudbury le dimanche qu'on ne devrait pas être obligé d'être dans les magasins.
M. Poirier : Parfait.
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Mr Jackson: Several comments strike out at me in the report. I appreciate your candour and your expression of your experience, but let me get aside a concern I have. I am a little nervous about the generalizing that larger stores do not really care about the employees. Just to put the point on its reverse, the cases of workplace sexual assault are higher in smaller workplace environments than they are in large ones. So I just am nervous about generalizations. I feel better now having gotten that off my chest. I just did not really like that kind of generalization on any subject.
Mr Michel: Maybe I should not say "bigger stores," that general, but the managers do not like it. I agree with you the managers do not like these situations, but the people who make the laws are the big guys who spend most of the time in Florida and stuff like that. They are the ones who are pushing this because they are the ones who get the dollars in their pockets at the end.
Mr Jackson: Which distinguishes them from the employers who spend their time in Finland. I guess I really just wanted to indicate that I did not feel that was appropriate. I have a lot of respect for small business, but I also understand legally how our legislation is structured, where we target large businesses in labour laws, and we have to be very careful about oversimplification.
I guess you consider yourself very fortunate, understanding this legislation, that you live in Sudbury, which puts a low premium on tourism relative to other communities we are hearing from in the north. I sense it is highly unlikely, given the newspaper reports today, the presentations today, that this is a city that will overtly pursue tourism as it relates to Sunday opening. You must consider yourself quite fortunate, because there are people in your business in Kenora who are most anxious because of the tourists they have to turn away. I guess that may be partly the proximity of the number of tourists who actually are captive in Kenora versus those who will continue on their journey on their way through Sudbury and a variety of other factors. Do you consider yourself fortunate that you are in Sudbury?
Mr Michel: I think we are very fortunate. I have also been to Kenora, and I think that they have so much to do in Kenora, so many things to see in Kenora, that I do not see why they would want to be spending their time shopping in stores.
Mr Jackson: The point specifically that emerged was a study that overwhelmed everybody about the incredible amount of commerce that was generated by tourist dollars. No one had ever quantified that, and now having done it they realized how significant it was, and they have the Kenora experience of being open on Sundays and could measure the increased business, unlike province-wide statistics. In Sudbury it may have had a low impact, but in Kenora it had a very major impact. Do you go so far as to suggest that should be the standard across the province?
I sense in your second bullet point here, no pun intended, that you talk about being pleased about a new government but then figuring these are the same old group that are bending over again. Do you feel, as a northerner in this province, that Kenora should have the right to expose its markets to its higher tourism trade?
Mr Michel: I think it should have the right to expose its tourist market, and there are so many things that are tourist-oriented. Okay, but I do not think grocery stores in Kenora should be open any more than here, or hardware stores.
Mr Jackson: I used to do a lot of camping, and I used to do a lot of trailer camping through northern Ontario when I was a boy, and I know that we just could not keep a lot of food in our camper at the time. We had to stop regularly to get food. On two occasions we lost a wheel. On one occasion we were fixed and could not move because we had to wait until the store opened. Once in Charlottetown I did not have the problem; it broke down on a Saturday night. Sunday morning I was able to present myself and get a new wheel and everything worked well. So as a traveller and a frequent tourist in this province, I see the value of having access to a grocery store -- but I will not always get what I want.
Anyway, I appreciate your input and your brief, and as I said, I was a little nervous about that first point you made.
Mr Lessard: You have a small business, and there was a time that stores like yourself would have been able to open legally when the law was uncertain. Was there any time that you did open your store on Sunday?
Mr Michel: No, there was not.
Mr Lessard: If all stores were permitted to be open on an unrestricted basis, would you ever feel that you would be forced to reconsider your position on that?
Mr Michel: My feelings are quite strong on that. I would certainly give it some thought because Canadian Tire started opening on Sundays and some of the other hardware stores did open on Sunday, but I felt that anybody who really wants our service -- there are an awful lot of people who come in for service in our business -- will have to wait till Monday. That is all there is to it, because we are open 70 hours a week, and I spend almost 70 hours a week there, and I have some very good employees who can help people, and I think our business has gone up yearly even in the bad years, and I think it is because we are a service-oriented store. I think people appreciate that and will wait till Monday to come to our store for that reason.
Mr Lessard: Have you ever thought about how much it might cost or what sort of impact it might have on your business if you did find yourself forced to be open on Sunday?
Mr Michel: Yes. I think that our business would likely increase by 6% or 7%.
Mr Lessard: And what about your costs?
Mr Michel: Our costs would increase a bit, but I think we are one of the businesses which would likely profit from being open Sundays.
Mr Lessard: But you choose not to because there is more to it than just that for you.
Mr Michel: There is more to life than just work. I would have to be there most of the time, or my family; I have three sons who work with me. I feel there is more to life than just working. You have to say, "That's enough," and relax. I always work six days a week, and I am not going to work the seventh.
Mr Mills: Mr Michel, thank you very much for being here this afternoon. I have listened intently to your brief, and I must say that the majority of it I agree with. I, too, support the philosophy of a family day to get together and rest. We also support your philosophy that there is more, absolutely more, to life than shopping. In fact, I find shopping one of the perhaps most stressful things I have to do. My wife now leaves me at home because we know that we will have an argument sooner or later.
I would just like to take up on page 2 that you have here about hiring staff. Everybody has been spouting off at length about giving the opportunity to people to work on the weekend. But I know that -- I am not a Sunday shopper myself -- many people whom I have discussions with claim and argue time and time again that really to go to a store on a Sunday is wasting their time because the expertise is not there. It is students, and I am not saying anything about students, but with one day there they obviously do not have the expertise to serve the customer well. So I am asking, who is the winner here? I cannot see any winner.
I would also like to take note of your paragraph 2, where you said you are happy to see a new government in Ontario that seems to have the guts to govern. I would like to qualify that. We do have the guts to govern and it is continuing and that is why we are here in this open process to listen to what folks like you say about this Bill 115. The Premier has made a commitment in the speech from the throne that we do recognize a common pause day, and that is enshrined in legislation. That is not up for grabs. We are just here to refine and define the draft regulation.
I notice also that you say you go to church on Sunday. I have not noticed any ministerial association from Sudbury being here telling us what all the church and all the church people like you think about this. So not having that before us, perhaps you could give me an idea of the number in the congregation you attend and how they feel about Sunday shopping.
Mr Michel: When Sunday shopping was an issue a couple of years ago, I did speak to several of the priests in my church, and at that time a brief had been made against Sunday shopping. I think many of the people in my church feel the same way: Sunday is the day they go to church, but also it is a day of leisure and all that sort of stuff. Then I do know some who would be out shopping every day if they could. But I think the majority would like to see no shopping and keep it a day of peace, a day of rest or whatever.
Mr Mills: Again, thank you very much.
The Acting Chair: Mr Michel, on behalf of the committee I would like to thank you for taking time out this afternoon and appearing before the committee.
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SAULT STE MARIE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE
The Acting Chair: I would like to call our next presenter, from the Sault Ste Marie Chamber of Commerce. Thank you for coming this afternoon. You will be allowed half an hour for your presentation. You can either make a full half-hour presentation or else submit a shorter presentation and allow time for questions and answers from each of the caucuses. Could you please identify yourself for the record and then proceed.
Mr Lajambe: I am Ken Lajambe, president of the Sault Ste Marie Chamber of Commerce in Sault Ste Marie, Ontario. I would like to thank you at the outset for the privilege of attending here today at this standing committee on administration of justice for the province. We appreciate the fact that we have people here from all parties, which I had not realized at the outset. So this cannot be an NDP-bashing because everybody is here, friends and colleagues of all parties; this is great.
Mr Carr: Bash us all.
Mr Lajambe: We have to make some decisions without consultation. The preamble to the Sunday shopping issue will contain, just to know it, the history of where we are coming from as a border community. So just bear with me. It is not onerous and it is not long.
As president of the Sault Ste Marie Chamber of Commerce and on behalf of our over 600 members -- I should say that at this time two years ago it was 900 -- I am pleased to present our position on Sunday shopping. The chamber's membership represents a broad cross-section of the community and approximately 60% of our membership base is small business owners with one to five employees. We are not talking megacompanies here.
During 1988, the chamber of commerce conducted an extensive survey of the issue during the summer. To say the least, this was a controversial issue, with people both strongly in favour and strongly opposed. However, the majority of survey participants favoured Sunday retail openings in our community.
This left a lot of things unanswered in terms of what the members felt who were in opposition and who lost the battle. As in any other game, there are winners and there are losers. In this issue with the community, and particularly with the chamber, we lost a substantial number of members based on our stand on Sunday shopping. However, it was, as I say, in favour of taking that stand.
Subsequent to that, in 1989, the city passed a resolution allowing for Sunday shopping during the hours of 1 pm to 5 pm. During this time, most businesses have experienced positive results and in fact some business owners who were initially opposed to Sunday openings have since reversed their position and continue to derive significant revenue from this practice.
Sault Ste Marie, Ontario, is located on the Michigan border, as most of you know, and has experienced tremendous economic hardship as a result of cross-border shopping, which does indeed, in our view, tie in absolutely with the chaos of Sunday shopping. A study of the issue commissioned by the chamber through Ernst and Young, which was released in October 1990, indicated that over $140 million in lost income annually accrued and over 1,000 jobs had been lost to date as a result of the cross-border shopping exodus.
The study also revealed, and certainly the government of the day would realize, that the purchase of gasoline was the primary reason for same-day trips to Sault Ste Marie, Michigan, as well as milk products. We have just noted that the Sault dairy producer, in terms of Beatrice Foods, is indeed closing in the Sault and it is going to operate out of Sudbury. Good for this city. Sault Ste Marie, Michigan, businesses have been open on Sundays since I was a kid, I guess, and that is a long time ago. Some businesses in that city are also open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. That is how they survive.
We also know that when Canadian Sault businesses are closed on statutory holidays there is a flood of business to Sault Ste Marie, Michigan. That is evidenced every time there is a major holiday. The main purpose of their excursion from Canada to the US, of course, is to shop.
As you are also no doubt aware -- if I knew you were aware, I would not even bring this up, so I have to assume some of you are not aware -- the Sault has also suffered a drastic downturn in our local economy as a result of our primary employer, Algoma Steel; as its lengthy labour dispute in 1990 dragged on, the economy went in the same direction. The future of Canada's number three steelmaker -- where we used to be at least number two -- is very uncertain at this time. The company has attempted to restructure its enormous debt load, reduce costs and increase productivity, the essentials of any good business operation.
It is estimated that Algoma will have a direct impact on almost 20,000 persons in Sault Ste Marie, with the spinoffs resulting in the one-to-five loss, approximately 25% of our entire population. Our population base now is about 80,000. Should Algoma Steel not be successful in its restructuring bid, the community as a whole will suffer even more losses in the years to come.
However, we are not taking a defeatist attitude. In fact, we are attempting to develop an economic and social strategy that will ensure our community's survival in the long term. The RAPIDS process -- which stands for research, action, promotion, infrastructure, delegate authority/tasks and support systems/resources -- which Sudbury underwent some years back and which was picked up by our local government, is in place and has had its first consultative process completed and the report has now been written in terms of diversifying and looking to secure broadly based community input into how the Sault can diversify further. The plan should be complete by the end of 1991 and the chamber is hopeful this much-needed program will be successful indeed.
The issue at hand, Sunday shopping: We believe it is fair to say that the old adage does indeed apply: "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." Sunday shopping has had tremendous positive influences in our community. Aside from the fact that some people, churchgoers, church people, some segment of the labour force, did not agree with coming to work on Sundays -- and who does? -- Sudbury has a Sunday workday, Sault Ste Marie indeed has; any place where there is a large industrial base is a 24-hour-a-day operation, including paper mills in the Sault, steel mills, seamless tubes.
So having said that, any move to amend this legislation in our view would have dire economic ramifications for the Sault both in terms of lost revenue to business and increase in job losses, a situation that none of us here care to discuss and certainly do not accept.
Sault Ste Marie's employment insurance and welfare rolls are one of the highest in Ontario. We are not proud of this. If the Sunday shopping legislation were reversed, it would only serve to make an already bad situation even worse, hearkening back to the fact that on statutory holidays, including Sundays, the exodus of people across the river before Sunday shopping was indeed measurable, which is kind of scary, in our view.
In addition, we take exception with the NDP government's proposed legislation that applications to municipalities for a tourist exemption to allow Sunday openings must have the support of the local chamber or convention and visitor bureau. We cannot really tie this to what was being said in the first instance. The responsibility that was assigned by this current government, without consultation -- in our view, this is the first consulting process that I know of where we have had input into the legislation, which has already had first reading on June 4.
As well as placing a hell of a burden on the chamber by virtue of that, and violating the chamber's members' freedom of choice on this and any other issue, this requirement would leave the chamber and convention and visitor bureaus possibly open to legal considerations from retailers whose applications do not receive the support of either the chamber, the convention bureau or the municipality.
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A central element of the proposed legislation is the tourist exemption criteria. These criteria are widely considered to be unworkable, unenforceable and open to abuse, but an additional concern is that the tourist criteria, while holding the weight of the law, are closeted in the bill's regulations, in the latter part. As a result, the NDP government can alter key aspects of the law without public input or legislative review.
Recognizing the complexity of the tourist criteria -- and I feel they are not only complex but open to a lot of interpretation by a lot of different interest groups about a lot of different things -- the NDP is privately developing guidelines for their administration which will support what the intent probably was in the legislation, which is fine. I have no argument with that, except that seems to be the way that is going. While these guidelines contain information essential to retailers, such as the definition of a tourist, the NDP has, to date, not consulted with affected parties. We believe that full consideration and public review of these guidelines are vital if the complete impact of the government's amendments is to be fully understood, and supported in the long term, if that becomes necessary, to have that type of input and agreement before the legislation is given its final reading.
In conclusion, the Sault chamber of commerce supports the city of Sault Ste Marie's position -- and I extend the regrets of the mayor in that he was not able to be here today; he will be attending a similar conference in Toronto on August 29 -- and we strongly urge the province of Ontario to maintain the existing legislation which permits such openings. I thank you for the opportunity to provide the written comments today.
In a personal vein, if I may, we were concerned about the location of this hearing. We felt that it should have been held in Sault Ste Marie. It is a city that is suffering economically. It is a city that has a good, working Sunday shopping bylaw, and we felt very strongly -- the mayor will be reiterating this in Toronto, I am sure -- that it should have been held in a place which has had some success in the factor, and cross-border shopping cannot be divorced in our case from the issue of Sunday shopping. It has its place, and we were disheartened, I think, by the fact that the reason given for not holding it in the Sault was because of the possible mixup in terms of the understanding of one to the other, cross-border and Sunday shopping.
I think the Premier of the day indicated some time ago that consultation would be the vehicle that brought people together, and we honestly do not feel that we are on the NDP's agenda, as business people. We have not had a chance to see any evidence of that. We did the cross-border review two weeks ago with all members of government -- the feds, provincial, municipal and the mayors -- and still did not get the kind of feeling that we have a together situation with business, and that is scary. It is scary to us because we do not know where the hell to turn. We might as well have targets all over our body as business people. Everybody is firing at us and they are all hitting us in different places. We cannot continue.
This is a very major vehicle and we need a reconsideration of the bill, and how the hell we bring it about when it has already had a first reading -- and maybe that is the way it goes before it is up for consultation, but we have a major concern of reversing the tide of those who did not support Sunday shopping in Sault Ste Marie in the first instance having turned full circle and there is very little opposition.
And you know what? New Democrats in particular, whose main concern is the welfare of people, aside from business people -- there is not a cry from the union about the Sunday shopping. There are jobs available in a store six days a week. There are a certain number of people in a store seven days a week. There is an added number of people; I do not give a damn how you count the bodies. I do not know if there are union people here in opposition to this or in support of it or not and I care less. The position of the business community is that we think, in the best interests of all parties, it does provide some more employment in terms of just manning Sundays. We know that in the bill is contained a section which protects the worker's right to refuse work, for whatever reason, to be determined, the same as in the health and welfare act, and the bottom line of it all is, from our perspective in the Sault -- and we are surrounded by New Democrats, ministers and all. We have access to them fairly easily -- I am asking you to reconsider, in the light of the fact that we are successful -- and I do not know what anybody else here has said about this issue -- we are strongly opposed and wish we had had more consultation prior to even getting to this step.
The Acting Chair: We have about five minutes for each caucus. Mr Sorbara.
Mr Sorbara: Let me thank you first for a very eloquent and passionate plea. Our view as well is that there should be a reconsideration of the bill.
I do not think you should be offering regrets on behalf of the mayor for not being here. I am constrained to tell you, sir, that the opposition members on this committee pleaded with the government members to hold hearings in Sault Ste Marie. A motion was presented to this committee to that effect and that motion was voted down by the government members. We regret that, sir, and we take no part in that.
I think the example of Sault Ste Marie probably represents the very best evidence that the bill before us here is not well advised. The reason I say that is because whenever a government is proposing a law, what it would really like to have is some sense of how the world is going to look after the law is passed. In most instances you do not know that. In most instances you can only speculate. You can have your researchers come up with models if you raise the minimum wage by 10% or 15% or 20%, but you really do not know. But in the case of Bill 115 the reality is that we had a few examples around Ontario about the way in which the world would look if the government simply allowed storekeepers and consumers to determine the extent to which Sunday shopping would be a reality. The Sault Ste Marie example is, I think, the model we have to look at to determine where we need to go on Sunday shopping.
Your submissions with respect to employment are crucial to our consideration of this bill. There is no community in Ontario that has suffered as much in its retail sector as Sault Ste Marie. Our caucus had committee hearings there and it was absolutely clear that just the differential in the cost of gasoline was bringing people across the borders, and they were doing the rest of their shopping while they were there.
The fact that you state unequivocally that Sunday shopping can add at least marginally to overall employment in a community like Sault Ste Marie is uncontroverted. It is my hope that the government members, and the trade union movement in particular, get a sense that although it is not going to solve our retail problems and although it is not going to solve our competitive problems, it will help a little bit.
You have now had an experience with a law that required all stores to be closed and you have had an experience with allowing the marketplace to set the times and set the rules. Can you just give us a few more details on how that is assisted in a marketplace in an economy which is under very severe pressure?
Mr Lajambe: I guess those who did not support it and those who did support it have a parallel process, and they were the larger stores in one case and the larger stores in the other case. The Canadian Tire on one side and the lumber industry on the other did not want to support it in the initial stages. What it has done is it has brought the have-nots on side. Sears, for instance, is another one that was not for this in the first instance, and that is a major anchor in our biggest mall, as you know. They had to have things proven, as did all the market merchants. In the malls they have a direct measurable device that can determine the added impact of Sunday shopping. They would have shopped some other day, but they chose to go there on Sunday because it was open. This is new money we are talking about, which is easily determined in the malls. The advantage of that concept of the big and the small -- and I do not know what the evolution of it was in terms of time, but all I can tell you now is that all of these people are on side. In a store the size of Canadian Tire, the owner suggested that 60 added employees per month would be required.
Mr Sorbara: Sixty added employees per month?
Mr Lajambe: Per month. That is weekdays. That is 60 people for a week each month. That is 300 man-days. That is what he estimated for his store. That varies from Sears to the corner store selling trinkets, which is the tourism criterion. The impact has been excellent.
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Mr Carr: Thank you very much for your presentation. I appreciate your coming the distance. I just wanted to say that I myself and Charles Harnick, who is on the committee also, wanted to go to Sault Ste Marie but we were voted down by the government side. We are going to miss that opportunity but hope we will get a chance on one of the other committees.
The situation is such now that we have heard in varying degrees from chambers. The one in Sudbury is not interested in opening and some of the others are. The other communities we have been to so far have been in favour of opening and have some real concerns with the legislation.
What would you like to say to the government members who say they believe they know better than you do in your community about what the economic impact will be and they feel you should not have the right to open? What would you like to say to the government members who feel they know better about your business in your area than you do?
Mr Lajambe: I am going to assume that no one here has said that. I am going to hope they have not said that.
Mr O'Connor: No, there has not been, actually. He likes to keep saying that.
Mr Carr: Seriously, though, this says that. The bill says that, I guess. That is what I am referring to. I have to have enough confidence that surely to God we are not here for nothing. I sat at a Liberal caucus meeting -- not a caucus meeting, but just some people who were up in the Sault. One of them was an organizer and there was another ex-MP talking -- no names -- but this guy was sitting there and the MP was sitting here talking about all the things that were wrong with the economy. This young lad was really not paying attention, so the ex-member says: "You're not listening because your eyes are glazed. I can tell. Your eyes are glazed. You're not listening." There are no glazed eyes here, I hope.
We have to be cognizant of the fact that if we do not have a team effort we are licked, and you are going to be licked too in three and a half years. If we do not get some new listening devices here, we are going to have a hell of a time working together. Bob Rae said he was going to work with the business community. Damn it, we do not want to have to work in spite of him. If we are going to work together, we had better start doing it, because I think we are being throttled till we are God-damned nearly out of breath as a business community. I speak for the business people, not just for our community. We have got to understand that social justice is just straight and we are all part of it, but boy, we have to look after the people who pay the bills. If we do not, we will not need any of these sitdowns.
Mr Jackson: Briefly, I appreciate the perspective you bring so forcefully and I am looking forward to meeting your mayor again at his presentation in Toronto. You made some references to the attitude of the Sault Ste Marie and District Labour Council. I wanted to check, have they made any overture about making a presentation, or do we have any presentation at all anticipated from them? Could you just expand a bit on what their attitude and concerns are in your area on this issue?
Mr Lajambe: I cannot speak when I did not refer to the labour council. I said I have not heard one word from the unions per se about Sunday shopping.
Mr Jackson: We have not either.
Mr Lajambe: I have to assume the results of that are fairly satisfactory. From a brain sense, I think if it meant more people working, it has got to be satisfactory or acceptable. In Sault Ste Marie, we are a shift workers' town. We have been like that for ever. We are not in the 1800s where you did things on Sundays like they did then in terms of church, in terms of visiting, in terms of family gatherings. They do it now whenever in hell they are off work. Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday is not much different to the shift worker. I think Tony, who is one of our members and has worked fairly closely with us, would support the fact that we have had, in my view, not one word from the union, one way or the other, in Sault Ste Marie about Sunday shopping.
Mr Poirier: What do you say, Tony?
Interjection.
Mr Jackson: I am anxious to get an answer. It is his riding and I would be most anxious to hear him comment on it. I do not want us to write the labour council and say, "Hey, give us your opinion," but its silence is being interpreted at the moment. Anything would be helpful.
Mr Martin: I would suggest to you that the union's energy is being focused at the moment on something of a more crucial nature, which is the Algoma Steel situation and all that entails. They usually have an opinion on everything that affects their membership and they are not afraid to say it. I do not think there is a group in Sault Ste Marie that is afraid to stand up and say its bit about things it feels strongly.
On this one, Sault Ste Marie has been able, over the last few years, to come up with a compromise that it felt was good. Because of that compromise, people are not energized by the present legislation in the way that they would have been, say, maybe three or four years ago when there was no Sunday shopping allowed in Sault Ste Marie. Those two things might explain perhaps the reason that the union's energy at the moment is focused on Algoma Steel and trying to get that one resolved and the fact that I think probably most people in the Sault feel at the moment they have a compromise that is working. Within the limits of this present legislation, it may still work.
They are probably confident that we can put something in place with the chamber's voice and the mayor's voice and my voice that will represent the views of that community in an adequate way.
The Acting Chair: Did you have further questions?
Mr Martin: Yes, I did. I wanted to say to Ken as well, it is always nice to see you. It is nice to see you again here from the Sault today and for taking the time to drive this far.
I certainly had no objection to the committee coming to Sault Ste Marie. My understanding of why they did not come was because they were trying to hit a cross-section of communities because it is not, in fact, a cross-border shopping issue although it does have a tremendous influence on that whole phenomenon, and both you and I would agree on that. They are going to Windsor, which is a community which is experiencing a similar, very difficult time at the moment because of the phenomenon of cross-border shopping.
I also wanted to start out by saying to you, because obviously you are not hearing it, that this government does want to work in co-operation and in partnership with the business community. If you look actually at some of the legislation that has come down in the last while, it has been tempered by the voice of business and its concerns.
I can speak confidently from the government's perspective to say that is why we are here today. We see the issue of Sunday shopping as one that is of great interest to the whole province. We are out here trying to get as much information as we can around the proposed legislation that we have brought to the government in the form of first reading, and we certainly do intend, with non-glazed eyes, to hear you and seriously take into account everything you have to say.
I personally have committed, as I have in the last year, to meeting with you and the chamber on a regular basis.
I think it is important for the whole committee to understand that Sault Ste Marie has Sunday shopping, but it was a compromise that it arrived at through some very heated discussion. I marched on city hall with my family opposed to Sunday shopping two years ago, and since then have actually shopped on Sunday with my family and have come to understand the convenience of being able to go out and perhaps get some medication for my children or a loaf of bread or whatever on a Sunday afternoon.
The important point here is that Sault St Marie arrived at a compromise after much discussion that satisfied I think most people. That is what we are about here today. We recognize that a large percentage of people want a common pause day in this province. We want to recognize the uniqueness of areas that are almost totally dependent on tourism for their economy, and also the right of workers to be able to say no to working on Sunday.
The regulations are here for you to look at and if you do not have a copy of them I can certainly get it for you so that we might look at that. After reading it myself, I think there is room for us in Sault Ste Marie to look at this and perhaps even fit in, being creative and courageous as we have in the past.
In the discussions that happened in Sault Ste Marie, there was a question of the need of the larger store to compete with the entity across the river. There was also the need of the smaller store to compete with the larger store, because when they opened on Sunday the little neighbourhood, family-type stores -- I had one of my staff go around and talk to those folks recently -- are struggling even more than the larger stores in this cross-border shopping challenge.
Have you done a recent survey of the smaller stores and how they are feeling at the moment re that question of competing with the bigger stores on Sunday?
Mr Lajambe: We have not done that in terms of formal survey. The chamber listens to business. We talked to 400 out of our 600 members about all those kinds of things, but it was not a measurable device. It was, "Are you satisfied with what's happening with Sunday shopping?" I do not have the number here but it was exceptionally high, those who were satisfied with the action taken by the chamber vis-à-vis Sunday shopping.
I do know that the participation has increased dramatically, but I do not know what that relationship is, big to small, and how they fare with that, unfortunately.
Mr Sorbara: There are a couple of comments that I am constrained to make arising from Mr Martin's remarks. I am sorry to see him leaving the room. I consider him to be an MPP of very great integrity, but two things need to be pointed out.
I imagine that Mr Martin was not consulted, but we tried desperately to get the government members to agree to have a day in Sault Ste Marie, and indeed it had nothing to do with the inability of flights or travel arrangements. It was, as it appeared to us, a clear decision on the part of the government members, and I presume the government, that they would hold hearings in only one border community.
I think Mr Martin is right, that this committee should have been in Sault Ste Marie, and we would have liked to have been there.
The second point to make is I agree with him that Sault Ste Marie has worked hard to work out a good and reasonable compromise that matches the needs for the Sault community. That is important and that is good politics, but the reality is that they have done it under a bill that provides them the opportunity to do that. That is the local option.
Mr Martin: On a point of order, Mr Chairman: Is Mr Sorbara speaking on a point of order or do we all get a chance to make a speech here?
Interjection: We will all get a chance of course. He is a good Chair.
Mr Sorbara: I do not mind. I would like to hear those speeches.
The Acting Chair: Seeing no other business before the committee --
Mr Fletcher: On a point of order, Mr Chairman: As far as the committee travelling around the province is concerned, we are spending four weeks of travelling in the north, the east, the west and southwestern part of the province. We are hitting cross-border communities. We are hitting tourist areas. We are hitting industrial areas. The committee voted, as a democratic committee should. The subcommittee first brought in a report and then tried to change the report of the subcommittee which is made up of all-party members.
It was just, as far as I am concerned, an attempt, as we see today, to bring attention to the fact that we did not hit every community that was out there.
The Acting Chair: You do not have a point. Thank you for the information though.
Mr Fletcher: I think the committee recognizes this as caucus politics.
Mr Jackson: If I am being asked to comment, it is quite routine for committee members to individually request to have their city represented. This is not uncommon. If Mr Martin recommended to his caucus that his city be included, and it was not included, that is where it falls and that is where it ends. If he failed to do that, that is his business, but it is quite routine for committees to vote down various locations. I would like to indicate that implying motive for requesting cities or the turning down of cities is inappropriate discussion.
Mr Martin: I did not request that the committee come to the Sault. When I was consulted when the discussion was on, I was asked whether I had any problem. I said no and I understood why they decided not to come. The other thing I would like to raise is that two other committees travelling this summer are hitting the Sault, so we are being consulted by this government in a significant way, not on this issue, because we feel that our voice will be heard through Mr Lajambe and the mayor and in Windsor.
The Acting Chair: Thanks for that point of information.
I would like to thank the city of Sudbury for hosting this committee. Seeing no other business, we will adjourn until 9:30 a.m. tomorrow at the Pinewood Park Inn in North Bay.
The committee adjourned at 1533.