Once again on Family Day large influential retail operations like the Eaton Centre have been permitted to remain open while small shops are threatened with fines if they dare to sell a thing. This legal abomination sits technically with the City. It’s a power Council has had since the Toronto Act invested it with the means to manage an embarrassing convention that Queen’s Park no longer wanted to shoulder, at least not in this great metropolis where people expect to be able to shop every day. There are many reasons why this unfair practice continues, all of them bad. Powerful realty companies and Lord’s Day hangover lobbies are two. The government will say it’s all about families and the fear that a parent won’t be able to spend time with a child. We have a hot flash. Thousands of parents are at work on Family day in exempted occupations ranging from theatre ushers to salt miners. Never mind the countless people at the shops in the Eaton Centre who would rather have a day off but are forced to work. It’s all as phony as Dalton McGuinty’s maudlin complaint that he just had to declare a mid-winter statuary holiday because he hadn’t spent enough time with his late father. What rubbish. There is a thing called the Ontario Labour Standards Act. It is perfectly suited to make sure that employees are dealt with fairly. Those who don’t want to work can have it their way. Those who want to work should be permitted. Spare us the bogus concern about our families.
