Freedom Flyer 13

the official newsletter of the
Freedom Party of Ontario

Winter 1988-89

Sunday Shopping - Not Just A Single Issue!

Click here to see Freedom Party's full page London Free Press ad,
"Yes to Freedom Of Choice in Sunday Shopping!"
(GIF format image, 72 kilobytes file size)

By the end of January 1988, public lobbying against freedom of choice in Sunday shopping was reaching a crescendo.

Many of the well-established retailers, fearing the prospect of competition on a day that has traditionally (for them, at least) been a "day of rest", were spending thousands of dollars on newspaper advertising aimed at swaying the public (and politicians!) to use the law to force their competitors to remain closed on Sundays.

Even though the ads were highly emotional and completely lacking in substance, few had the courage to publicly address the moral and legal vacuum in which the issue was being debated. It is alarming, in a free society, to watch so-called "community" groups, "reputable" retailers, and politicians display such utter disregard for (and ignorance of) the fundamental principles that make a free and prosperous society possible.

Whether they were for or against the idea of Sunday shopping, most of the major participants in the Sunday shopping controversy (i.e., politicians and the business, labour, and special interest groups who were lobbying them) completely avoided any mention or discussion about the consequences and significance of Sunday shopping laws.

No one seemed concerned that Sunday shopping laws were being directed at people whose only "crime" was trying to earn a living as they best see fit. No one seemed concerned that Ontario's Sunday shopping laws have already been declared a "justifiable" violation of freedom of religion --- and remarkably, the groups who had the most to lose by this decision (i.e., organized religious groups) were among those who were doing the most celebrating when the Supreme Court of Canada declared that freedom of religion could be overruled (December, 1986).

Most alarmingly, the legal, moral, and social significance of Sunday shopping laws seems lost on most voters. Few people understand how subjective and arbitrary laws tend to multiply to the extent that eventually, any citizen could find himself in legal peril simply for making a choice that disagrees with some irrelevant and unsubstantiated "majority".