DISTRICT MUNICIPALITY OF MUSKOKA
ONTARIO HOTEL AND MOTEL ASSOCIATION
UNITED FOOD AND COMMERCIAL WORKERS UNION, LOCALS 175/633
ELK LAKE AND DISTRICT CHAMBER OF COMMERCE
NORTH BAY AND DISTRICT LABOUR COUNCIL
ONTARIO MARINA OPERATORS ASSOCIATION
CONTENTS
Thursday 8 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
City of North Bay
District Municipality of Muskoka
Ontario Hotel and Motel Association
United Food and Commercial Workers Union, Locals 175/633
Elk Lake and District Chamber of Commerce
North Bay and District Labour Council
Ontario Marina Operators Association
Accommodations/Motels Ontario
Huntsville/Lake of Bays Chamber of Commerce, Muskoka Tourism Marketing Agency, Traditions of Muskoka Inc
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
Sutherland, Kimble (Oxford NDP) for Mr Mills
Clerk: Freedman, Lisa
Staff: Swift, Susan, Research Officer, Legislative Research Service
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The committee met at 0936 in the Pinewood Park Inn, North Bay.
RETAIL BUSINESS ESTABLISHMENTS STATUTE LAW AMENDMENT ACT, 1991 / LOI DE 1991MODIFIANT 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 to order the standing committee on administration of justice, studying Bill 115, the Retail Business Establishments Statute Law Amendment Act. I welcome everyone to the great city of North Bay.
CITY OF NORTH BAY
The Acting Chair: I call on the first presenter from the city of North Bay, Mayor Stan Lawlor. Good morning. You will be given a half-hour for your presentation. You can either give a full half-hour presentation or a shorter brief and then allow questions and comments from each of the caucuses. Please identify yourself for the record and then proceed.
Mr Lawlor: I am Stan Lawlor, mayor of the city of North Bay. First of all, I am pleased to be here and I am pleased to see the committee make the rounds of the province giving an opportunity to have input as to the variety of views -- and certainly there are, I recognize, a variety of views -- on this issue, a controversial one. Some of the views that will be represented, I am sure, emphasize the issues of economic viability and competitiveness with regard to cross-border shopping, certainly a critical issue. Some others will perhaps focus on some more traditional issues.
Recognizing that North Bay is not a border community, and recognizing that we have reached some consensus within the community on this issue, I feel I can claim quite confidently that I do represent a predominant consensus of the North Bay community when I say our community is not in favour of what I would call wide-open Sunday shopping for our community.
Now, I realize there were some communities that were very concerned about being left with the responsibility of making decisions as to whether or not they would have to play a role -- that is, councils making decisions -- in deciding whether there would be wide-open Sunday shopping in their communities. Our community is not one of those. We are prepared, given that opportunity, to make that decision for our community. We feel that in this area, along with many others, it is a valid function and a necessary function in order to promote the values that appear to have an acceptance and support within the community. Perhaps I can review, then, a few of the ideas I feel would be important in arriving at the reasons for those statements.
The decision to live in a community such as North Bay, with a population of 50,000 and, as you know, the second-largest city in Ontario, exceeded only by Timmins in area, is made by people for a reason. That reason is, and some of your people even said it getting off the plane and arriving in North Bay today, the pace of life. The pace of life in a community such as North Bay is different from the pace of life in Toronto. It is different from the pace of life in, for example, Hamilton or any of the larger centres, even London. In order to preserve that pace of life and the attractiveness of North Bay -- and, by the way, it even makes it attractive for many people who are looking for locations for industry, looking for locations to work; some of the correctional services people have found the same thing in the relocation to North Bay when the ministry was relocated here -- we have to subscribe to the values that have brought us to this stage. One of those is the concept of the weekend.
The weekend is a time, in our view, when people get a chance to get a rest, to look forward to going back renewed to the busy pace that perhaps prevails at the workplace. There was a situation 50 years ago in which people were fighting for the 40-hour week. At that time, the week was more like an 80-hour week. Through a variety of labour legislation measures, the 40-hour week has become a reality, and indeed the 35-hour week has become a reality. It seems to us that unless there is some way you can increase the amount of money that is available, or the amount of business that is going to be conducted, spreading five or six days out into seven is not really going to achieve much by way of improving our economy. Our own experience in dealing with businesses is that it has not increased employment. What happened, when the courts struck down the legislation, is that they have opened a little later in the morning during the week, they have closed a little earlier at night and they have made the same number of people in the same number of hours stretch into the Sunday period. It has not had the effect of increasing employment.
As well, we have found that the Sunday shopping has not really resulted in any more business for the stores. The stores that really would look forward to Sunday shopping would be the large department stores. Of course in our case, not having a Sears or an Eatons or any of those stores, we are dealing with what we call the junior department stores -- Zellers, Woolco, Towers in the past, and so on. In the local area, the consensus of these stores was, "As long as nobody opens, we won't open either." So it became a situation where we started negotiating with the various stores to gain support from their head offices to remain closed. The only one we could not break, unfortunately, was Zellers.
I want to tell you that at this time last year, on July 22, between that period and four or five weeks on either side of it, when open Sunday shopping became a reality, there were major demonstrations such as I had not seen in North Bay on the part of people who were opposing Sunday shopping in the community. Now, I am not telling you that people will not go out and shop on Sunday. They will. But if you talk to them, and people from the media did, they say: "If they're open, we'll go out and shop, but it's not a really big deal for us. It's not something that we really want in such a way that we're going to go to the ends of the earth for it. If it's there, we'll take it. If it's not, then we'll do other things on Sunday." What is the reason, then, we would argue in favour of a local option to be able to make a decision ourselves as to what is good for our community? The answer is because, as in so many other areas, we oppose the TBS syndrome, we oppose the Toronto-based-solution syndrome -- "If it's good for Toronto, then it's good for the entire province."
We have seen too much of that. We have seen it in planning. We have seen it in legislation in highways, in terms of signage on highways. We have seen it in so many areas that we are saying: "We are small-town Ontario. We are a community that lives by a set of values and we are prepared to subscribe to what is required in order to make those values work." The family concept that we promote, that this is a good place to bring up families, that it is a good place to maintain a healthy family structure, requires that we have some ability to be able to set a day when most people -- and I realize there are essential services, and I realize there are some shift workers who inevitably work on Sunday -- can look forward to the opportunity of being able to get together with families and do the things families do when they get such time to get together.
Those are some of the predominant views, ladies and gentlemen, that exist in this community. I again emphasize that I can claim, I think with confidence, to speak for the predominant consensus that exists within the community. I feel that when we look at what we have done with regard to the development of our community over the past 10 years or so, and some of you who were familiar with it before, will realize that we really have not done that badly. We are not a community that is concerned about what goes on in neighbouring communities. As well, by the way, I realize that some cross-border problems exist, but in some southern Ontario communities there may be a concern about what is happening in the neighbouring community.
If Sudbury were to choose -- and, by the way, they have not chosen to do so -- to open on Sunday, that would not be a concern to us. Nor would Sturgeon Falls, Timmins or any of the other communities be a concern. We are prepared to recognize that there are other needs in other parts of the province. We are not asking to impose what is good for North Bay on the rest of the province, but we are asking to have an opportunity to decide what is good for North Bay should it be the view that Sunday shopping is either necessary or beneficial for other areas of Ontario.
The Acting Chair: Thank you. That leaves about five minutes for each caucus.
Mr Sorbara: Thank you, Mayor Lawlor, and congratulations on being able to manage a rather delicate issue in the community of North Bay, an issue that is sometimes contentious.
I want to put it to you that in this debate on Sunday shopping there are really four models that have grasped our attention. Some of those models have been in force for a while, for a period of time.
The first is the model where there is no regulation whatever of Sunday shopping, neither by the municipality nor by the provincial government. For the period of time when the court struck down Bill 113, that was the model that was in place all around the province.
The second model existed under Bill 113; that is to say, stores were required to stay closed on Sunday, save and except that a municipality had the unrestricted right to vary that to whatever extent that municipality chose to vary it. That is the Bill 113 model.
Third is the model we are considering under Bill 115. Under that model stores are required to stay closed, but municipalities have a much narrower right to allow stores to open; that is, municipalities can act so long as they comply with the law and the regulations relating to tourism, the promotion and development of tourism. In that model stores are closed. They can open, however, under the authority of a municipality if the provincial criteria are met.
The fourth is, in a sense, the model of the past, where under no circumstances can stores open, with a very few exceptions. It is sort of the Lord's Day Alliance model, where basically there is no shopping on Sunday.
I think I have set out the spectrum for you. Just to review them, they are Bill 113, Bill 115 and the Lord's Day Alliance model. As mayor, which model do you prefer?
Mr Lawlor: Bill 113 would be my preference, with Bill 115 as second.
Mr Sorbara: Right. Bill 113 gives the municipality unrestricted options to vary according to local flavours.
Mr Lawlor: My reason for that is that I feel 113 will tie the applicant who wants to open up in less legalese, less expense and less problem in terms of trying to find out how you approach this complexity. That would be the major reason for my choice of 113 over 115, but 115 is a close second.
Mr Sorbara: Is it not the case that 113 avoids the problem that you identified, and that is TBS, the Toronto-based syndrome?
Mr Lawlor: That is correct.
Mr Sorbara: It allows you to create the variant that you want in this community. I want to put it to you that 115 comes pretty close to imposing yet another Toronto-based syndrome, because it restricts you to tourism criteria, tourism criteria that are basically made at Queen's Park and made in Toronto, and adds to the businesses in this community a pretty hefty administrative burden in applications and application fees and, important for you, the time of council of the city of North Bay to deal with all of those applications. Do you have any comment on that?
Mr Lawlor: I agree with what you say. Of course the question that arises in the case of 115 is, if you establish that you meet those criteria, much in the case of a court, if you can meet the criteria, then do you have a guarantee of being open? I do not know for sure what the answer to that is in 115, but there are occasions in which we would say we do not feel it is in the best interest of the community as opposed to looking at what is in the best interests of the applicant.
Mr Sorbara: So you would want the ability, from time to time --
Mr Lawlor: Discretionary ability.
Mr Sorbara: -- to vary according to the way in which circumstances develop. Is it safe --
The Acting Chair: Thank you, Mr Sorbara. Mr Carr.
Mr Carr: Thank you very much, Mr Lawlor, for coming out this morning. You definitely have a very lovely community. The question I have is this: We have had an opportunity to go around to some of the smaller communities. You talk about the Toronto-based solution. We heard from people in Collingwood who said they voted -- I believe it was 9-0 -- that they will take the tourist exemption. Thunder Bay says they will be open. Sudbury says they will not be open. Kenora says they will be. So what we are going to see is not a Toronto-based solution. You are going to have communities opening up and some of them not. I was wondering if you see any pressure on your community. If in fact a neighbouring municipality chooses to open up, and with this being such a big tourist area, do you see a lot of pressure on your community to follow along with it? How would you be able to stop that in terms of stopping people from wanting the Sunday openings as a result of the next neighbour having it?
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Mr Lawlor: Our experience has not been that we have had that pressure. Actually, I might mention an interesting example to you. About three or four years ago, maybe three years ago, there was a case of a Boxing Day opening on Sunday. If you recall, Boxing Day came on Sunday. What I did was, I invited the people from all of the major shopping areas in the community, and there are seven of them -- the majors; I am talking about malls, etc -- to get together with me and to sit down and come up with a consensus that they would all close.
In the end we had one, and it turned out that it was Zellers that was not co-operating and we could not get it to agree. We sat down long enough to emphasize that the media were sitting outside waiting for the answer and was Zellers going to be the spoiler. The manager at the Zellers store said, "Just give me one last chance to make a call," and we were the only area in the province in which a community consensus was arrived at in which there was closing. There were stores open in many other communities around the area, and the same kind of thing happened after Bill 113 was struck down.
It is not a major concern to us, probably for two reasons. One is distance, as you can appreciate. The other one is that if you feel strongly enough about a value or a commitment, then you have to stick by it. My belief is, on matters of principle you stand like an oak and on matters of taste you bend like a reed. This is a principle.
Mr Jackson: I listened to your presentation and maybe I missed exactly the North Bay experience. When you had your own municipal option you chose not to go with it.
Mr Lawlor: Yes.
Mr Jackson: What was your experience when the law was struck down and what was the frequency of extended shopping?
Mr Lawlor: Our experience was that some of the larger stores started to open up. Many of the smaller stores within the mall wanted to have an option to stay closed and there was great controversy over that. Some of the malls said: "It's part of the contract that you're open whenever the mall is open. If you don't open that violates your lease and we insist that you abide by the lease." Of course, that was tested as well and it ended up that the ones that wanted to stay closed in some cases did.
Then we got into the issue at one point, "Well, nobody's going to lose their job if they refuse to work on Sunday." That is simply a crock, because as far as I am concerned, a person who is running a store, if you are going to lose your job or if you are going to get the bad shifts or if you are going to get the short hours, there are many ways of doing it if you refuse to abide by what is expected of you as opposed to what is required of you.
Mr Jackson: Do you feel that the current legislation or the past legislation protected workers sufficiently?
Mr Lawlor: I do not think past legislation has protected them as it related to the claim that you had the personal option of choosing or not choosing to work on Sunday.
Mr Jackson: And the current legislation?
Mr Lawlor: I suspect not, but it is harder to say because, in my view, it has not been given sufficient time to --
Mr Jackson: My final question would be, given your sense of the community and your council -- and by "your community" I also would include the tourist and commercial-tourist interests in your extended regional area -- what do you think a vote of council might be?
Mr Lawlor: Vote of council would be 11-0 in favour of Sunday closing. The tourists who come here do not come with the predominant reason to shop. They want convenient shopping, like a milk store or Shoppers Drug Mart for necessities. As you know, in the past some of those have been open based on a variety of factors relating to the number of people working and the square footage associated with it. But they are not coming here predominantly to shop. They are coming here predominantly for the recreational experience.
Mr Fletcher: It is a very nice community. It is a pleasure to be here. Just a couple of questions. As you know, this government is committed to a common pause day and one of the things that we are trying to ensure is the protection of the people who usually have to work in a store. You agree that workers should have that protection.
Mr Lawlor: I do, but you have raised a new name now and that is a common pause day, which really does not achieve the goal that I am setting out to achieve. I am talking about a common day of rest, when the entire community settles on a day and as many people as possible can set that out as the day that is prescribed. If you are going to have any day of the week picked when somebody is going to be off, and I do not know if that is exactly what you mean in your comment, then that really does not achieve the goal that I am attempting to achieve.
Mr Fletcher: As far as the tourist exemption is concerned, you know your community so well, and obviously the people have a lot of respect for you. They have put you into office. If the tourist people approached city council, your council, and said, "We meet all the criteria. We'd like to have some exemptions for some of the marinas" or what have you, you would have to look at that. Would you think that the decision would still be 11-0?
Mr Lawlor: We would look at an argument based on the need and the season and determine if it was considered to be a necessary service or a service that was going to be in the interest of the community, but I would not judge it on the basis of the interests of the applicant. I would judge it on the basis of the interests of the community.
Mr Fletcher: Of the geographic area?
Mr Lawlor: Yes.
Mr Fletcher: So the tourist exemption still leaves you with the option to make the decision.
Mr Lawlor: It leaves us with that option. I think it would require some persuasive arguments to adopt it, but it would leave us with that option, and that is why I think in the rest of the province there may be cogent and persuasive arguments for Sunday opening.
Mr Fletcher: Just one more point and this is more of a comment than anything else. You know we have been going throughout the province, in northern Ontario, and people sitting opposite and some of the people who have presented have said that a common pause day or a day off for people is out of step; it is old-fashioned. The way I look at it is with the family values and the way people are always talking about, "We have to get back to the family roots." I would rather be old-fashioned and out of step if that is what it takes.
Mr Lawlor: I will take that as a rhetorical comment and agree with it.
Mr Sutherland: Mr Lawlor, it is a pleasure to be here in your community, and you have done such a good sales job that it almost makes me want to move here to North Bay. Just based on your comments, we can take it to assume that you do not believe that a shopping mall is a tourist attraction.
Mr Lawlor: No. If that is our tourist attraction, then, boy, we are in trouble.
Mr Sutherland: You feel comfortable, then, with the tourist exemptions there. North Bay in some ways is a bit of a regional centre as well in that way and there is enough flexibility there to allow North Bay not to be out of step with some of its neighbouring municipalities.
Mr Lawlor: That is correct. You see, my argument is this: If people are coming to North Bay for a vacation or recreation, they are coming for what we can offer, and in the winter, we offer them cross-country and downhill skiing, snowmobiling or whatever. In the summer we will offer canoeing, we will offer them trips on the Chief Commanda and hiking trails -- we will offer them a variety of recreational opportunities there. Our job is to build upon those resources so that we really do have them going home and saying, "You know, I was in North Bay, I was in the Nipissing area, and I did something very, very different," rather than saying, "I went there and I went to the mall, and if I were home, I'd have gone to the mall, too." So we are looking to make it a genuine vacation experience.
The Acting Chair: Mayor Lawlor, on behalf of this committee I would thank you for taking time out this morning and coming and giving your presentation.
Mr Lawlor: I thank you, gentlemen and ladies. It has been a pleasure.
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DISTRICT MUNICIPALITY OF MUSKOKA
The Acting Chair: For everybody's information, at 11:30 we will have the Elk Lake and District Chamber of Commerce.
Right now I would like to call forward the next presenter from the district municipality of Muskoka. Could you please take a seat? You will be given half an hour to do your presentation. You can either take the full half-hour for your presentation or you can submit a shorter presentation to allow questions and comments from each of the caucuses. Could you please identify yourself for the record and then proceed.
Mr Royston: My name is David Royston and I am the district solicitor with the district municipality of Muskoka. Some of you may or may not be familiar with Muskoka. It is an upper-tier government that covers basically the area from the Severn River to approximately 10 or 15 miles north of Huntsville. It also runs from Georgian Bay almost over to Algonquin Park on the east. To many people, we are referred to as cottage country or tourist country or fun country. Euphemisms of that nature are generally used to describe the district of Muskoka.
I am here today to talk about Bill 115 and the common pause day in particular. I have put together a written submission on behalf of the district of Muskoka which I think highlights a number of the concerns that are prevalent in our area. I am not going to read that to you this morning -- I believe you can read that on your own time -- but I would like you to take note of page 8. At page 8 there is a brief summary as to the three positions I would like to touch on here today.
The first position, and it is the one that is perhaps the strongest and most prevalent in the district of Muskoka, is that the common pause day in today's society is both inappropriate and impractical. While we do support the retention of certain specified holidays, for example the 10 or 12 listed in clause 1(1)(a) of the act itself, the concept of a weekly pause day is just not appropriate in today's society.
With that in mind, we suggest that the concept be disbanded, and that, with respect to the other holidays in question, municipalities have a clear option to determine whether they wish to opt out of the holiday. The one that always comes to mind is Boxing Day. Boxing Day sales are prevalent throughout this province, and municipalities should have the opportunity to determine whether such events are possible in their areas without regard to any suggested criteria.
The second position, if you are not persuaded that the common pause day is inappropriate, is simply retention of the status quo -- in other words, Bill 113. We have had extensive experience with Sunday shopping over an extended period of time. I am personally familiar with Sunday shopping in Muskoka over approximately a 20-year period, and that goes back to what I will call the olden days, when all the shopkeepers voluntarily closed on Mondays in the winter because it was simply the convention. There was no law that said they had to do so; it was simply the community convention, and it was the way it was.
Everybody is familiar with the civic holiday in August. There were many places in Muskoka that chose to take their civic holiday in September, because the idea was that the tourist season was during the summer. Everybody had to be available and open during the summer season, and as a result the civic holiday was taken in September. It was great for us school kids; we got an extra holiday in September.
We have seen an evolution of that, though. Along came the Retail Business Holidays Act, and the district of Muskoka passed a bylaw, bylaw 8753, which provided a variety of touristy-type exemptions. These were things like bait shops and art galleries, and things like that that are attributable to the tourist trade, and that was only slightly workable. The reason that I say only slightly workable is because any attempt to categorize business on the basis of class of customer, on the basis of product line, or on the basis of number of employees just is not workable.
In my position I get the opportunity to review a lot of the Sunday shopping stuff. People phone me regularly, mostly businessmen inquiring whether they are entitled to be open on a particular holiday, and the thing that was very quickly discovered was that almost every business does not fall squarely within any given category. It is impossible to create a series of workable categories, and this is something we discovered actually after everybody got a taste of Sunday shopping.
When the Supreme Court of Ontario declared 113 ultra vires, we basically entered a period of Sunday shopping, and this was another stage in the evolution of Sunday shopping in Muskoka. It was a most interesting thing, because the catastrophe that everybody suspected did not occur. People basically made a business decision. They said, "Do I need to be open to serve my customers?" or, "Can I make more money by opening up Sundays?" Some people did, some people did not. They made a business decision. It was all very simple and everybody got along just grand.
In fact, this Sunday I had a most interesting experience. I was doing some plumbing around my mother's house. I was cleaning out some of the faucets and the traps and I needed one of the washers that fits on the bottom of a trap. So I phoned around and I discovered there were a couple of stores that were open and I wandered on down and I got one and everything was grand. It worked out just fine, and again we discovered that some people are open, some people are not. It is their choice.
One thing we have also discovered came as a result of the next phase in the evolution of Sunday shopping, and that was after the Court of Appeal decided that Bill 113 was constitutional. At that point in time, we had a flood of requests for the passage of a bylaw under 4(1) of the act. So we went through the process of holding the statutory meeting and we had about 15 or 20 people come forward, which is a large number of people for a regional council meeting at the hearing, and it was most interesting, because virtually nobody made reference to the ideals behind the common pause day. All anybody wanted to talk about was business regulation. That was it. That is what we found we were basically dealing with, business regulation.
So what the district council decided to do was pass a bylaw basically allowing wide-open shopping between, in essence, Victoria Day and Thanksgiving Day in any given year, and this is viewed as an interim solution.
It is hoped that the common pause day principle will be rethought, that it will be recognized as being, as I say, impractical and inappropriate, and that we will be able to allow businesses to exercise freedom of choice. That is a very important principle.
One of the things that we did discover was, many of the local chambers of commerce came forward and did make presentations at that public meeting. There were two very common threads at that public meeting: number one, the principle of freedom of choice. Businesses still want the option to decide by themselves as to whether they are going to be open on Sundays in Muskoka, and the statistics were actually overwhelming. The surveys were done and it was like 75% in favour of that principle, 25% against.
The second thing that was very clear was that there was a concept that the regulations, whatever they might be, must be the same for everybody. In other words, do not discriminate among categories of businesses. If you are going to regulate business, make the rules of the game fair to everybody, and that is entirely understandable, because not everybody fits within a given type of business. In Muskoka, people sell a little bit of this, a little bit of that. You find a whole variety of products in any given store. You find a whole variety of clientele that might shop at any given store.
In that regard, if you take a look at Muskoka, Muskoka is sort of a microcosm of Ontario. It is made up of permanent residents, and there are about 40,000 of us. It is made of up seasonal residents, also known as the cottagers, and they number something on the order of 100,000. They are actually becoming more and more permanent, because with the winterization of cottages, etc, you are finding that people are spending more and more time up in the area. You are also finding that we have a large number of traditional tourists, ie, people who go to resorts, people who go to campgrounds, people who go the various attractions, such as the Segwun or the Bracebridge Santa's Village, and you also have a large variety of business travellers.
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It basically breaks down that it is clear from the surveys and the studies we have done that these people basically want the opportunity, and if the retailers want to give it to them or meet their customers' demands, then so be it.
The final position that is sort of discussed there is the concept that if we are not persuaded to not further pursue the common pause day and stick with Bill 113, I respectfully submit that you are going to really seriously have to look at Bill 115.
I have been in this business for eight and half years. When I was called to the bar in 1983, I started work as the assistant solicitor at the district of Muskoka. I am now the district solicitor. To be honest with you, the proposed regulations in Bill 113 are no more workable than the "essential for maintenance or development of a tourist industry" test that we saw in the pre-1989 legislation. Municipalities are not going to pay attention to it. It is going to be abused as badly as was suggested when the 1989 legislation came through. It is almost incomprehensible. To be honest with you, I still do not know exactly what those regulations say and I would not be confident in giving any opinions as to precisely what they are.
You are going to have to broaden your concepts of tourism. My suggestion would be that if you indeed do decide that tourism is a provincial sort of interest, as has been suggested, then it may be much more appropriate that you enact a standard exemption in section 3, along with the pharmacies and convenience stores and the various other things that one finds, and simply do it that way, as opposed to leaving it up to municipalities to decide whether they are a "tourist area."
Turning then to the common pause day in particular, I would like to share with you some of my experiences in dealing with what I would call conduct regulation. Governments today do really two things. What they do is provide services or they engage in what is known as conduct regulation. By conduct regulation I mean things that are basically laws to govern what people do, "Thou shalt not do X upon pain of penalty Y." You find that prevalent throughout our society. It goes everywhere from the Criminal Code to the local stop sign. All of this is a form of conduct regulation.
In my experience, if one is proposing to enact a conduct regulation, which this in essence is, you really have to satisfy four tests. The four tests are: (1) The proposed regulations must have the general support of the community at large; (2) the proposed regulations must be understandable and workable to those who will be affected by them; (3) they must be legal in the sense of being within the jurisdiction of the enacting body and they must not be contrary to any overriding legislation, such as the Charter of Rights; and (4) there must be a clear intent and effort to enforce the proposed conduct regulations.
With respect to item 1, I am going to suggest to you that the proposed common pause day does not have the support of the community at large. When I say community at large, you are going to have to look at your community as being the retailers, the shoppers and potentially the people who work in the retail stores.
It has been my experience that in terms of shopping, most people do not care. They like the convenience. They like the opportunity to shop on Sundays if it is given to them. When it comes to the retailers, our surveys in Muskoka are clear: They want the opportunity.
So we are left with the workers. With all due respect, I think you have that base covered. If the purpose of this legislation is simply worker protection, I think you have done that satisfactorily with the proposed amendments to the Employment Standards Act by giving people 36 hours off in any given seven-day week. That will satisfy your concerns.
If there is any doubt about it, some of you may be aware of the recent decision of an employment standards officer which reinstated a particular worker at I believe a Bata shoe store or something like that. That is a clear indication to the bosses who will potentially abuse things that such conduct will not be tolerated. All it is going to do is take one or two of those to get the message out, but I think you have your worker protection covered.
As a result, I would suggest to you very strongly that you would have a difficult time finding the support of the community at large. I suggest that is an understandable concept, because you have to go back to what conduct regulation is all about. Conduct regulation is designed to remedy a mischief. In other words, thou shalt not murder thy neighbour because it is decided by society that that is not appropriate conduct.
With all due respect to those who think otherwise, I submit that there is no real mischief here that is being remedied. You are looking at something that, really, there is no real problem. As a result, conduct regulation really is not appropriate in the circumstances.
With respect to understandability to the community at large, to be frank, I wish I did not have to spend the time that I do answering people's inquiries as to whether they are permitted to be open or not.
Just as an example of how this whole scenario has been misinterpreted in the past, one takes a look at the communities that are going about happily designating themselves tourist areas. There has not been and is not now any such power to do so. Prior to 1987 there was the ability to enact regulations that permitted certain classes to be open for the purposes of developing or maintaining a tourist industry, but one did not find a power that said, "You may designate yourself a tourist area." Nowadays, obviously there is no such power. If one reads the legislation correctly, exemptions can be enacted on any basis and at any time whatsoever.
So communities even using the legislation do not understand it. People who are subject to the legislation do not understand it. The calls to my office, people inquiring about whether their store qualifies under this, that or the next thing -- it is almost a day's worth of work prior to any major holiday. It is simply not understood by the community at large.
I am going to suggest to you that your proposed regulations will not be understandable to the community at large and I am going to suggest to you that you probably will not be able to enact regulations that are understandable to the community at large because of the diversity of business. You simply cannot classify businesses on the basis of product line or customer status and have it work. It just does not work, folks.
With respect to the proposed legislation meeting the general legal requirements -- this is actually a very important point among all the retailers -- it is very clear that whenever you attempt to distinguish between businesses you have discrimination. That is a very bad word in today's society. John Doe is going to be allowed to be open but Mary Doe, who sells something similar or maybe slightly different, is not. That is inappropriate in today's society. Any attempt to discriminate between businesses, whether it be by way of their location, by way of their product line or by way of their customer status, is, in my submission, entirely inappropriate.
That is, I suggest, a fundamental problem with this whole concept. If one actually takes a look at discrimination issues, I note that you are talking in terms of common pause day, but you left in section 5 of the Retail Business Holidays Act as added in 1989. This is where a business can opt out on the basis of the religion of the owner. That is a most interesting concept. I suggest to you that it flies in the face of a common pause day. I suggest that the proposed legislation is discriminatory and is really further inappropriate.
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The final point is enforceability. There is no sense passing a conduct regulation that you are not going to enforce. In Muskoka the enforcement is done by the OPP, as it may or may not be done in other areas of the province. It is a provincial statute and is within their mandate to enforce. With all due respect, our police officers have better things to do than run around chasing storekeepers for not complying with relatively low-level conduct legislation.
I cannot tell you the times I have spent talking to OPP officers, discussing one business or another solely because a competitor is complaining. I always start out my conversations now with police officers: "Who is complaining? Is he a competitor? Do you really want to pursue this?" We have murderers in Toronto, we have difficult problems in Muskoka and the police just do not have the time to proceed with this extremely low level of conduct regulation. They should be doing other things.
The net result is that the enforceability of the legislation is highly suspect. Whenever your enforceability is highly suspect, I think you have to go back to the first question: What great remedy are we going to get out of this?
Then, with all due respect, I suggest that the proposed legislation does not meet the four basic tests applicable to conduct regulation, and that the proposed common pause day really should be rethought.
The Acting Chair: Your time is just about up. If you would like to wrap it up and allow time for a quick comment.
Mr Royston: I would like you to take note of one item: The second position in the paper is that we return to the municipal option, Bill 113. I suggest that because you really have to give municipalities the power to make a decision or not. Hamstringing them with some vague criteria is really not going to work. The practicality of it is that municipalities, if they are faced with a common pause day, will want the option of opting out regardless of basis. That is the only way it is going to work. Otherwise you are going to have people screaming about discrimination. It is really the only workable way to go.
Mr Sorbara: Let me thank you for what in my estimation is the most articulate, thorough and insightful analysis of the bill thus far in these public hearings. Without disrespect to the other presenters, it makes the business of travelling around the province and holding public hearings worthwhile. I endorse your view of what government does and the four tests for conduct regulation.
I also want to tell you that your statement -- and I am not quoting verbatim but I will try to get the thrust of it -- that, "Any attempt to classify businesses on the basis of product line, category of customer, number of employees or size is unworkable," reflects precisely what we have heard in so much of these public hearings.
When the state starts to try and pick the winners and losers in the commercial market it is undertaking something that ultimately will prove destructive to that very commercial activity. I take it that the views you are expressing here are the views of the council, which supports the position you are expressing: that you prefer no regulation, your second option is Bill 113 and your third option would be Bill 115.
Mr Royston: With one minor amendment: The council is not opposed to what I would call the statutory holidays, Christmas, New Year's and so on. We understand there are certain days that must be set aside as public holidays and it is appropriate that businesses be shut down on those days. The only way that you are going to get businesses -- retail businesses in particular, which are not subject to the majority of other statutes -- to close on those days is through a statute such as the Retail Business Holidays Act.
Mr Sorbara: To put a little political flavour into the stew, when Bill 113 was presented, and during its consideration, there was a great deal of hostility on the part of municipalities because they were given this wide-open discretion. Nevertheless, during these hearings -- from the mayor of North Bay to many other municipalities -- they are coming to grips with this responsibility and frankly feel a degree of satisfaction.
What was the experience in your municipality? Was there opposition at first to the so-called municipal option, and has a transition taken place to the present position?
Mr Royston: Yes. Originally I was instructed to criticize the municipal option as it has come to be known. But I do believe there has been growth in our area and people have realized that is really the only practical basis upon which the thing can operate. We have certainly learned something during the last couple of years.
Mr Jackson: Let me commend you as well for a thoughtful brief and presentation. I guess my area of concern is the one you touched upon -- and we have not had much exposure on this point -- the concept of enforcement as it relates to the mechanics and daily operation. You have given us a personal insight into your operating procedures before Bill 115. It is of concern to me that there is a growing number of other Criminal Code matters that the police should be attending to, together with a non-growth in our police services, yet a growth in crime.
I recently had disturbing news in connection with the murder of the Mahaffy girl in my community and her dismemberment: We have two and a half police personnel working on that case and we have misled our community into believing that we have a task force pursuing her killer.
The police very rightly share with me the fact that their imposed new responsibilities, such as this legislation, occur without consultation. In fact the politicians are determining community standards of safety by virtue of pressures with their legislation, whether it is a court-imposed supervision which we saw two years ago under a previous government, or the absolute unworkableness of the police presenting themselves to you seven days a week to determine whether you fall inside or outside a broad definition of tourism, when in fact at the public hearings we are told that it is not broad enough and that it will be fraught with difficulties.
I want to thank you for presenting that point on behalf of our police. As you know, they are not able to come before the committee and make that presentation because of the very sensitive nature of their relationship with the Solicitor General's office. In many ways they have been muzzled because they are not free to speak on this subject.
You may wish to comment further if you have any other personal experiences. But whether it is this series of murders -- we have had eight or nine murders in my community over the last four years; we have also had the case of a young girl who was not found for some 30 days -- it raises larger questions about a growing crime rate in this province and why we are adding this pressure and why we are not listening to the fact that clearer guidelines would support easier enforcement.
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Mr Morrow: I would like to thank you for taking the time to come to talk to us this morning and help us make a very good piece of legislation.
With respect to your concerns about the concept of geographic areas, following the hearings and the outcome of this piece of legislation, the Ministry of Tourism and Recreation has undertaken to work with the local municipalities to develop guidelines to provide a more comprehensive formula.
With the question of an upper-tier decision on applications, which level would be more appropriate, an upper or a lower tier, and how would that affect the district of Muskoka?
Mr Royston: I will give you my personal point of view, because that is all I can give you at this point. I have not discussed the issue with anybody. My suggestion would be that the decision be kept at the highest level possible. The reason for that is to ensure fairness and sameness across the largest area possible.
In other words, you do not want a different series of regulations every 10 miles. You want to have the same regulations virtually applicable to everybody, and that was very clear in the presentations we received at our public meeting. People were very concerned that, whatever the regulations might be, they be the same for everybody.
Mr Morrow: Basically what you are saying is that the province should set the criteria for tourism.
Mr Royston: Yes, and if there has to be a local decision, then it should be kept at the regional level. For example, there is no reason why a food store in Gravenhurst should be permitted to open, whereas a food store in Muskoka Lakes, 25 miles down the road, should not be. There is a real desire to maintain a consistency across the region.
The Acting Chair: Mr Royston, on behalf of the committee, I would like to thank you for taking the time out to come and give your presentation this morning.
ONTARIO HOTEL AND MOTEL ASSOCIATION
The Chair: Our next presenter will be from the Ontario Hotel and Motel Association. You will be allowed half an hour. You can either take a full half-hour for your presentation or you can make a shorter presentation and allow time for questions and comments. Could you please identify yourself for the record, and then proceed.
Mr Schaffer: My name is Jason Schaffer. I am the chairman of the board of the Ontario Hotel and Motel Association. I own a motor hotel in the city of North Bay, and I speak both as an entrepreneur and as the chairman of the OHMA.
The proclamation reads: "For all Ontarians, you will rest, and you will rest on Sunday, with the exception of the following: those employed in hotels, restaurants, airports, taxis, some retailers, marinas, telecommunications, hydro, police, firemen, convenience stores -- of course, depending on size -- pharmacies, transportation, community grocers, gift shops, hospitals, etc, etc, etc" -- all who have the privilege, or possibly, depending on your point of view, divine misfortune, of having to work on Sundays.
Further, the Ontario government and municipal governments across the province are large employers of workers, both directly and indirectly, who must work on Sundays and holidays in retail businesses and in retail business establishments which compete directly with privately owned retail businesses and retail business establishments.
Everything from gift shops in hospitals to numerous large and small attractions, such as the Metropolitan Toronto Zoo, Ontario Place, Ontario Science Centre, Black Creek Pioneer Village, Science North, Old Fort William, provincial parks, Upper Canada Village, conservation areas and municipally owned stadia offer various forms of retail services from concession stands and camping supplies to specialty boutiques and retail stores.
The province of Ontario is not bound by any provisions in Bill 115 with respect to crown-owned retail business establishments on Sundays or statutory holidays; it can open them whenever it wishes. Municipalities can easily exempt their own retail establishments under Bill 115.
Surely there is no place for such blatant hypocrisy and unfair competition in a province such as ours, that prides itself on equality, rights and freedom for all. Does this sound intuitively sensible, reasonable and judicious?
This legislation will ostensibly create a socioeconomic division between those who must work on Sunday serving the particular needs of the privileged minority, who by government sanction not only are not required to work but are actually prevented from doing so. Legislation which supersedes the individual's inalienable right to work, earn an income and profit from the production and sale of goods and services, regardless of the day of the week, is wrong.
By the year 2000, if not sooner, tourism will be the largest industry in the world. It is already Ontario's largest private sector employer and the largest industry in the service sector, accounting for almost 70% of all new jobs.
This committee has heard from various tourism groups that have expounded on the statistical importance of the tourism industry. I too have brought with me a myriad of statistical evidence that demonstrates the vital importance of tourism in Ontario. Indeed, tourism is the very fabric of our economy. We must seize this opportunity to convince the provincial cabinet and government caucus that allowing unrestricted Sunday shopping is an endorsement of Ontario's recognition that tourism will be accorded the value it is entitled to.
If we are to be successful in sending the signal that Ontario is open for business, I believe we must not couch our arguments in subjective terms. We must speak to the legislators of our province in a language they understand best. Let us for the moment assume that we all understand the importance and economic impact that Sunday shopping will provide in the tourism industry. I would like to turn our attention to the question of how Sunday shopping impacts the quality-of-life continuum.
First, let it be understood that we are not asking the government to require people to work on Sunday, but to allow the choice to work on Sunday. Further, it has been reported that out of more than 10,000 inquiries and complaints registered with the employment standards branch of the Ministry of Labour in 1990, fewer than 15 were related to the right of retail workers to refuse work on Sundays and holidays. To those who would argue that one's quality of life is diminished by virtue of his working on Sundays, let me provide some personal examples which challenge their point of view.
I currently employ a staff of about 35 employees. One of those employees in housekeeping has worked in my hotel for over 25 years. During that time this individual has worked on Sundays, on Mondays, on Wednesdays, and I submit on every day of the week, but never has she worked seven days a week. She has never missed a shift and regards her work as meaningful, productive and significant. During that time she has raised a family, purchased a home, purchased cars, and she encouraged her daughter to work for us for many years. She is a member of a local church and is involved in community activities.
We employ a young lady who has worked in our dining room continuously for 17 years. She is single, enjoys working with the public and carries on a meaningful and productive life outside the hotel.
We employed a gentleman in maintenance for 13 years, until he retired at the age of 65. During his employment, this gentleman never questioned what day of the week he was required to work. He regarded his contribution as essential and meaningful.
We currently employ a lady who works in our laundry department and has done so for 17 years. She has raised a family, and again, encouraged both her daughters to work in our hotel for summer employment.
I respectfully submit that if someone were to question whether these people's quality of life has been threatened, it would be considered a personal affront.
It is important to question what Ontarians' quality of life would be without the contribution of people like these and others who are employed in restaurants, art centres, movie theatres, campgrounds and convenience stores. There is a basic inequity in a system where some people work on Sundays to provide a quality of life for those who are prohibited by legislation to work on Sundays.
It is easy to lose my particular business in the industry statistics that indicate that in 1990 in Ontario our industry generated direct expenditures of $15.5 billion, an estimated total income of $22.5 billion and estimated total sales of $36.9 billion, that our industry is one of the nation's largest generators of personal income, and corporate, property, business and sales taxes for all levels of government, including $1.85 billion to the province, $2.5 billion to the federal government and $300 million to municipal governments.
However, it is evident by statistical losses in our industry that without government endorsement of the tourism industry through Sunday shopping, many will lose and have lost their particular businesses. Where will our quality of life be then?
Sunday and holiday shopping has become an economic necessity for many thousands of Ontarians as they struggle to balance working realities with personal and family responsibilities. It is also a primary tourism activity for families and individuals who travel to and within our province and who combine shopping with entertainment, sightseeing, touring, dining, recreational activities, festivals and events.
In conclusion, I ask you to consider enhancing my ability to offer the hospitality that Ontario so desperately needs to provide to remain competitive in the global marketplace. By allowing unrestricted Sunday shopping, you are allowing me to compete on a level playing field and releasing my entrepreneurial spirit which will permit me to realize my potential. Put up roadblocks, such as elimination of Sunday shopping, and we collectively will suffer the consequences.
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Mr Sorbara: I have just a couple of questions. May I ask the witness, first of all, whether or not it is the case that the tourism industry, and in particular the operation of motels and hotels in Ontario, has been under severe economic pressure and difficult economic circumstances over the past couple of years?
Mr Schaffer: Absolutely. I can tell you that in the city of Toronto, of 104 properties in downtown Toronto, 28 of them currently are in receivership.
Mr Sorbara: Is it not the case that although governments cannot solve your problems for you, the revisitation of a number of regulations that affect your ability to do business is one of the things you see as absolutely necessary to the vitality of your businesses in the future?
Mr Schaffer: Absolutely.
Mr Sorbara: Can you tell us a little bit about the interrelationship between operating a hotel or motel, which obviously can operate on Sunday, and the operation of those businesses in communities that wish to or choose to open on Sunday? Why are these two things interrelated?
Mr Schaffer: The reason they are interrelated is that tourism certainly -- if you ask the man on the street what tourism is, everyone will have a response. They all have a definition. It is so encompassing that it involves -- I was listening to the mayor of North Bay this morning, and primarily many people talk about individuals who come here as visitors who are travelling and so forth and who are on holidays, but there are myriad reasons why people travel in Ontario, including business and trying to get to another destination and passing through communities and so forth.
For the tourist community to be effective in generating individuals, there has to be a notion that we are open for business, that there is a cross-section of commercial establishments that are open, that are available for whatever the needs might be, whether they be your car breaking down, shopping in a gift shop or trying to get a fax sent to another office.
Unless there is a general perception that Ontario is open for business, then there is a reluctance on behalf of individuals to choose Ontario when they have other choices available to them all around the province. Primarily we are being hit pretty hard by the fact that the northern states in the United States obviously are open on Sundays, but more than that, there is a general perception that you can enter any of those states and whatever the day of the week, you will not be left stranded.
The tourism establishment needs this sort of handcuff released from it so that it can offer its services to things like conventions. Toronto has been hurt very hard by virtue of the fact that many American convention concerns do not wish to come to a community on a weekend, for instance, where everything is closed on Sunday. It is more than just the business that goes on in the convention. It is also the ancillary kinds of things that go along with it, the kind of social interaction and shopping and so forth that go on in every convention, that make it a valuable tool. Yes, there are a number of reasons and we could go on further than that.
Mr Sorbara: Shopping is one part of the puzzle that makes the visit complete.
Mr Daigeler: I was rather interested to hear your comments with regard to the earlier presentation by the mayor of North Bay, and I appreciate the explanations you have given. To sum it up, you feel that the tourism exemption, which in its definition is very wide in this current bill, is not sufficient to give the tourism industry generally the freedom to operate and to achieve its business objectives. Is that correct?
Mr Schaffer: It is my personal point of view that if we are going to announce to the world that tourism is an important and vital industry in Ontario, as all the statistics show, it is important to me that this proclamation come from the provincial government, that the provincial government endorses tourism and endorses the notion that we must remain competitive, and that we are prepared to do whatever it takes to make our province competitive in the global marketplace.
Tourism has taken quite radical changes in the last 5 to 10 years, both in terms of the restaurant side and as the accommodation side. What used to be roadside motels for people who were travelling between point A and point B no longer exist any more. We have 1-800 numbers. People come from all over the world, and 85% of the travellers who come into Ontario come in through the city of Toronto.
I think this province needs to say that we are open for business. I think that word has to come from the provincial government, that there not be a perception that the provincial government wants to pass on this responsibility to define "tourism" to a municipality, that the provincial government understands what tourism is and is able to define it on its own.
Mr Carr: One of the questions I have relates to what will happen specifically here in North Bay. I think you were sitting here when the mayor was here and he said he feels the vote will probably be 11-0 in favour of not taking the tourist exemption. The question I would have would be this: Obviously I wish I could say your need to go before committees would be over after today, but it seems like your fight has just begun in this community.
I want to see what your feelings are, if you can enlighten the committee. What would happen if, for example, as we may have, some neighbouring communities are open? How do you see that affecting your particular members? If we do have some neighbouring communities that are open, would that make much of an impact, or would it be like the mayor said, that nobody comes to North Bay to do shopping, so he does not see any decrease in the amount of tourism activity, as an example?
Mr Schaffer: Let me answer that with three points. First, to my knowledge the mayor has never talked to the tourism community generally. He has talked to the retail groups and he has talked to the malls and so forth, but he has never had a direct communication with me.
I represent about 75 tourism properties in this city, specifically in North Bay. Of course I represent a great number in the province of Ontario. Some time ago, I guess about 9 or 10 years ago, the chamber of commerce had been making applications to the city for some 9 or 10 years to establish a visitors and convention bureau. Every year the city chose not to provide it with the money and the ability to establish that visitors and convention bureau.
It got to a point where the tourism community was fed up with the fact that North Bay was being left behind, in particular left behind communities like Sudbury, which is our neighbour to the west, and decided as a group to go to council and admonish it to establish a visitors and convention bureau. When we went to council, we indicated the taxes that we pay and the power that we have in this community and the vote went from 11-0 against to 11-0 for. So there is an opportunity for us to make an impact at council.
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The other thing, in terms of a direct response, there are many people in North Bay who feel Sudbury has been taking every piece of the pie away from them as we have gone through the years, with various opportunities to pick up government buildings and tourist destination points and so forth. There is something of a healthy competitive environment between Sudbury and North Bay. Sudbury certainly is a larger centre than North Bay and maybe it has more resources, but at the same time North Bay does compete with Sudbury in many areas.
In this area, if Sudbury were to have shopping, it would be to the detriment of the marketplace here in North Bay, without any question. It is not that people come to North Bay to shop. There may be a small portion of the community that comes specifically to shop in any community, but generally speaking it is an ancillary type of thing. If they believe the town is open and their needs can be taken care of, they do not have to guess whether this business or that business is open or not open. They come here, as the mayor said, for recreational activities, but at the same time it affords them the ability to say to their families: "We can go there. There's a cross-section of retail businesses that are open. If we need a life raft, we can get one; if we need our car fixed, we can get it fixed."
Mr Sutherland: If I could just get some clarification here, you were saying all kinds of activities fit into your definition of what goes into tourism.
Mr Schaffer: Yes.
Mr Sutherland: You said Sunday shopping is an economic necessity for many people in this day and age. I was wondering if you could expand on how you come to that meaning.
Mr Schaffer: It is not so much that it is Sunday; it is any day of the week. As I said in my presentation, people are trying to balance the realities of living today, earning an income and earning a profit and savings, with the realities of bringing up families and so forth. I think you have to take a look at it in the light that, as far as tourism is concerned, we cannot operate an industry that says, "Everything closes at 5 o'clock on Friday or 5 o'clock on Saturday and doesn't open until Monday morning."
I was born and raised in Florida and my family owned a hotel in Daytona Beach. I grew up in the hotel. I cleaned the dishes and so on. It has never been a perception of mine that there is a day of the week where I am not available to work. It is not that I think there should not be a day of rest; there absolutely should be a day of rest. I also agree with statutory holidays, that there should be time given for the family and so on. But saying that Ontario is going to shut down for a day I think is certainly to our detriment and to the detriment of those people who are happy and willing to work and interested in working on those days. The people who work for me or for any hotel come knowing they may have to work on Sundays. That is a precondition of employment. They are happy to do so as members of the hospitality industry.
Mr Sutherland: You mentioned that the tourism industry has been suffering this past year, in 1991. Some of the information I have received indicated that in 1990 there was a lot more travel going on and that 1990 was not a bad year. I guess that would lead me to believe that in some ways, if that information is true, the tourism sector is reflective of the economy in general. Therefore, if we are in a recession, the tourism industry goes into a steep recession as well.
Mr Schaffer: Yes, there is no question that is a fact. The recession has certainly affected the marketplace in the hospitality industry. However, in particular in urban centres there has been a marked decline as a result of the Sunday shopping issue. Specifically, the greater impact is in the larger communities and also in communities that predominate with business and convention travellers to a degree.
Mr Sutherland: If I can just bring it down to a more local focus, and given the nature of the mayor's comments this morning about the city of North Bay that people who come to the North Bay area are coming for recreational-type activities, whether that be hunting, fishing, canoeing, camping or whatever, do you think your particular business is going to be heavily affected one way or the other by what the city of North Bay does?
Mr Schaffer: Yes. I do not cater to people who go hunting or fishing. That is not my particular business. I own a motor hotel that deals predominantly with the business traveller, convention banquets and so forth. My property is downtown. I am in the downtown section next to the waterfront. My particular business will suffer.
I would also like to say that the idea of North Bay as a destination point for fishing, for hunting for moose and mountains is over. North Bay has to become a destination point for more than just those people who want to go angling and so forth, for a number of reasons. North Bay has to search for a definition that will allow it to be a visitor destination point once again. Its history has been that a lot of people came here in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s to go fishing and hunting, but that is really not the case any more.
The Acting Chair: Mr Schaffer, on behalf of the committee I would like to thank you for taking time out this morning and giving us your presentation.
Mr Sorbara: Mr Chairman, if I might, can I just raise a point? Call it a point of order, if you will. It is really a point of information and a request for information. I am glad that counsel for the ministry is here for this point. It arises, by the way, from the submission from counsel for the district of Muskoka and his reference to the continuing presence of section 5 of the current act.
As I recall, after the presentation from the Canadian Lord's Day Association the parliamentary assistant stated to the Solicitor General during the public hearings that this bill had absolutely nothing to do with religion and that its purpose was simply to create the common pause day in Ontario. I was going to say unaware. I did not recall at that time that section 5 continues to be part of the bill. That, by the way, is the Sabbatarian exemption which allows a business or an individual to identify his or her own common pause day or a common pause day for a particular business entity that does not choose to have Sunday as its common pause day.
I believe it is inconsistent with the statements of the parliamentary assistant, presumably speaking on behalf of the ministry, that the bill has nothing to do with religion to at the same time have the continued presence of the Sabbatarian exemption within the bill. I do not think the parliamentary assistant meant to be inconsistent and I am not sure the ministry means to be inconsistent, but my request is that at some point during the hearings we might have a statement from the ministry, from the minister or from the parliamentary assistant, on the question of the Sabbatarian exemption, and whether the failure to repeal section 5 was inadvertent or whether the government prefers to maintain the policy in the law that there shall be a Sabbatarian exemption.
I just put it to my colleagues who are members of the government that in my view it is inconsistent to reject the notion that Bill 115 has nothing to do with religion and yet at the same time maintain section 5. If you care to review section 5, you will notice that it does make specific provision for religion. In fact, it says in its closing words, "A retail business establishment is always closed to the public throughout another day of the week by reason of the religion of the owner of the retail business."
I ask that the government present its case in defence of the maintenance of that section or, in the alternative, advise the committee that it plans to bring forward an amendment repealing that section.
The Acting Chair: I will pass that on to the Solicitor General or to the parliamentary assistant and get some clarification on that.
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UNITED FOOD AND COMMERCIAL WORKERS UNION, LOCALS 175/633
The Acting Chair: Good morning, gentlemen. You will be given half an hour for your presentation. You can either use the full half-hour for your presentation or you can submit a shorter presentation and allow time for questions and answers or comments from each of the caucuses. Could you please identify yourself for the record and then proceed.
Mr Miller: Good morning, Mr Chairman. My name is Ian Miller. I am a business representative for the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, Locals 175/633. Also with me this morning is Wayne Montgomery, a business representative for UFCW Local 1008. I would like to ask Wayne to speak to the committee for just a couple of minutes, then I will make a presentation to the committee and then we will answer questions.
Mr Montgomery: Thank you. Just for clarification I must ask this question: Was I correct in understanding that the representative from the district of Muskoka said he had nobody present an issue regarding a common pause day when they had their meeting? My point is that if that is the case, that is incorrect information. Local 1000 did present a brief to them. They mailed it up to them and it was our understanding that it would be dealt with at that specific meeting. It did deal with the common pause day and also the legislation as far as tourist areas go, and we recognized the tourist area needs of some businesses to be open, but that businesses that did not meet the needs of tourists should not be allowed to open. We also believe that Mr Les Kingdon attended that same meeting and would have spoken on the same issue.
The Acting Chair: Thank you for that clarification.
Mr Miller: The United Food and Commercial Workers Union Locals 175/633 and the approximately 1,500 members employed in the North Bay area by such companies as A & P Food Stores, IGA food store, Woodhouse and Cherney's furniture stores and Valdi stores and many others wish to take this opportunity to thank you for being able to come before you and participate in the democratic process with regard to the issue of Bill 115, Sunday shopping and working.
UFCW, Locals 175/633, is the largest private sector local union in the whole of North America, with a membership of approximately 46,000. Our local union is solely situated in the province of Ontario, so it would come as no surprise to this committee that Locals 175/633, with the aforementioned membership, take the issue of Sunday shopping and working seriously. We believe it is in the best interests of employers and our members to have legislation in the province that provides for a common pause day.
On Monday July 29, Brother Clifford Evans, the Canadian director of the UFCW Canada, made a presentation to this committee. Our members in North Bay and the province support the recommendations made by Brother Evans to this committee on that date.
Our union has five main concerns with the proposed amendments to the Retail Business Holidays Act, and they are: (1) the intent of the Retail Business Holidays Act; (2) the municipal option; (3) drugstore openings on Sunday; (4) enforcement of the legislation; (5) the definition of a retail business. Rather than discussing each and every one of our concerns, we have chosen today to deal with the enforcement of the legislation.
The act, as it stands today, provides for a maximum fine of $50,000 upon conviction for opening illegally on Sundays. Municipalities and/or the Attorney General can ask the Supreme Court of Ontario for an order to close a business that is illegally open. The $50,000 is a maximum fine. There is no minimum fine and we do have cases where the courts are imposing fines of $300 upon convictions. It is our belief that $300 is not a deterrent to opening on a Sunday. The present act also allows the Attorney General and/or municipalities to ask and/or file for an injunction.
The proposed amendment: Our government has proposed that the minimum fine for a first offence would be $500 and $2000 for the second offence. It is our belief, while we are in full support of the government that a minimum fine is needed, that the $500 fine for the first offence and the $2000 for the second offence is too small. We believe that the amount of the proposed fine will not stop retailers from flagrantly disobeying the law of the province. It is quite conceivable that the store's profit for one day would be far in excess of the minimum fines and that the cost of the fine would undoubtedly be passed on to the consumers through higher prices.
The proposed legislation does not alter who could apply to the Supreme Court for an order to close an establishment which is illegally open. The limiting of the Attorney General and municipalities as the only bodies who can apply for an order to close an establishment will make enforcement of the law almost prohibitive.
We recommend: (1) that the minimum fine for the first offence be $10,000 and for the second offence $20,000; and (2) that any affected or interested person may make application to the Supreme Court of Ontario for an order to close a business establishment that is open illegally on Sundays or holidays.
We believe there is precedence in Canada throughout the province of Quebec to allow affected or interested parties to apply for orders of closure to the Supreme Court of that province.
The cost of enforcing this law by a municipality and/or the Attorney General's office is prohibitive for the municipality and the province. If our recommendation is accepted as to who would be able to apply to the Supreme Court for an order, we feel the cost to the municipality and the province would greatly diminish.
Higher minimum fines and a wider spectrum of parties applying to the Supreme Court would serve as an effective deterrent to businesses which want to open illegally on Sunday.
In conclusion, I would like to say that the United Food and Commercial Workers Union Locals 175/633 in the North Bay area thank the Ontario government for its support of common pause day legislation and seek the support of this committee to ensure that we have a law that is just, workable and fair to all. Again, I thank this committee for affording us this opportunity to participate in this process.
The Acting Chair: Thank you very much. We have about five minutes for each caucus.
Mr Sorbara: I just have a couple of brief questions. Can I ask first of all whether the stores where the United Food and Commercial Workers Union represents the workers are closed shops, that is, that one has to be a member of the bargaining unit in order to work in a job that is identified as part of the bargaining unit?
Mr Montgomery: That is correct.
Mr Sorbara: Under Bill 115 your workers will have an absolute right to refuse work. Do you understand the provisions of that section?
Mr Montgomery: Yes, we do. I would also like to state that our membership under our collective agreement has that right to refuse. Other stores which are not organized, even though they have the right to refuse, still can be subjected to adverse conditions which would require them to either lose their jobs or quit.
Mr Sorbara: But presumably you are speaking on behalf of your union and your membership, just like the mayor of North Bay was speaking on behalf of North Bay and the solicitor for Muskoka was speaking on behalf of Muskoka. Are you telling us that you are speaking on behalf of all the workers in the province?
Mr Montgomery: We feel that we can represent the majority of the workers in the province, and especially we are concerned with the non-organized, as the organized we can look after under our collective agreements.
Mr Sorbara: I submit to you that the non-organized workers are workers who have had the opportunity to join the United Food and Commercial Workers Union and have rejected that option. Is that not the case?
Mr Montgomery: That is not necessarily so. They have not all been approached by us at this point in time to be organized, and I hope that under the economic conditions, if the time arises when we can get the information to organize any of these stores, the people would come on our side and realize the benefit of being organized.
Mr Sorbara: And I would recommend them in that regard. I think that workers who have the opportunity to participate in a trade union have more effective work conditions and are going the way of the future. So I do not disagree with you; I am surprised that you say that you are making your submissions on behalf of all retail workers. Is it not the case that if you as a union choose to adopt the policy position that your workers are not going to work on Sundays, all of the stores where you represent the workers will be closed on Sundays, and that is without any other law whatever?
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Mr Miller: Without any law?
Mr Sorbara: Without any other law restricting Sunday openings or closing or tourism exemptions, you have the ability to establish a policy within the United Food and Commercial Workers Union that your workers will not work on Sunday under the absolute right to refuse, and as a result of that, those stores where 46,000 people work will not work, full stop.
Mr Montgomery: That is true, but again, to inflict that imposition on the employers of our people while other stores down the street sell the same commodities would then put a deterrent on our employer as well as our own people. Therefore, we would not totally tell them to not work. We would recommend that they do not, but we would not put a total force on it, as that would put an adverse effect on the employer himself, and we are not out to break our employer, by any means. We are out to see that everybody is treated equally, and we do not think that Sunday being open or any specific individual being allowed to be open is a fair playing field for anybody. If they are all closed on a common pause day is fair, to us.
Mr Sorbara: But would you not say that if you took that step within your union, that would be a positive signal to the rest of the retail workers who did not want to work on Sunday to join forces with you and we could effect a common pause day to the extent that people wanted it simply by virtue of good, solid worker legislation that gave workers the absolute right to refuse and we would not need to go through all the other paraphernalia of tourist exemptions, that the stores would close because workers do not want to work and the UFCW leading the charge would sort of set the pace for the province?
Mr Montgomery: Under labour laws, sir, we are not allowed to effectively force a work stoppage, and under our collective agreement there is a reasonable amount of overtime requested by the company --
Mr Sorbara: But not on Sunday.
Mr Montgomery: On Sunday it is an overtime situation in our case.
Mr Sorbara: I guess what I am putting to you is that under Bill 115, with the absolute right to refuse, that overrides the collective agreement, as do all statutes, and that is not an illegal work stoppage. That is a policy determination that UFCW workers are going to be available for work on Sundays and those stores are going to close.
Mr Montgomery: To your way of thinking, yes, but from my point of view, the stores are then legally able to be open. Then we would have a work stoppage in effect if we put that to them, due to the fact that the law would allow the store business to operate under whatever guise it would be under.
Mr Sorbara: Well, practically speaking.
Mr Montgomery: Therefore, it would be the responsibility of the employees for whatever overtime would be necessary.
Mr Sorbara: Just to end, could I get a clarification from both the Ministry of Labour and the Solicitor General on that? My impression is that the absolute right to refuse overrides any collective agreement and, notwithstanding that a store can legally be open, all of the workers of that store can refuse to work, and if it is a closed shop under Ontario's labour laws, the employer would not be able to hire scab labour to open on that day. Could I get a clarification from the Ministry of Labour and the Solicitor General on that? It is an important point for the UFCW. If they can effectively enforce a common pause day by a uniform policy of refusal, they should know whether they have that right.
The Acting Chair: Having nobody here right now, I am sure we could request --
Mr Sorbara: No, I do not want it now. I would like a similar request to the one I made about section 5; that is, a written response from both ministries as to the interplay between a collective agreement, the Ontario Labour Relations Act as it relates to illegal strikes and the effect of the absolute right to refuse.
The Acting Chair: Mr Daigeler, you have a minute left.
Mr Daigeler: You may not be able to answer this question. Is there a union, or are the workers in the tourism and hotel industry organized at all? So far we have had a lot of representations from the operators and owners of the tourism industry but no representation from the workers.
Mr Montgomery: Yes, there is. Some of the chains are organized throughout Canada, but I am not sure which ones, and I really could not answer that for you. I really would not want to speak on their behalf, other than to say that they know their industry requires a seven-day operation. The retail industry has always been historically a six-day operation. The employees know they have to work on a Saturday and accept that, but what we are fighting for is to maintain and have the right for the retail people who work Saturday to have at least Sunday with the children who do not go to school, and in some cases with their wives, who may work in a retail industry and have a different day off through the week than they would have. Also the children would be at school when they do have their day off. But to speak for the hotel industry, I cannot elaborate any further than that. If we can get information through our source-finding source, we will try to provide it for you at a future date.
Mr Carr: I appreciate your coming here and your submission. As you know, the Minister of Labour has been very concerned about the protection of the workers, and it has been said that during the period of time when we had this unregulated period where people were open, there were only about 15 people who actually complained about having been forced to work on Sunday. We heard from another solicitor this morning who said that when people hear of the case like the one Bata worker, I think he said it was, who got reinstated because he was forced to work, there will be strong enough provisions so that nobody will be forced to work. I was just wondering if you could comment on that. You said that there are not any provisions that can be tough enough, and I was wondering if you could relate your personal experiences of people who might have been forced to work on Sunday during that period of time and maybe just comment on why the numbers were so low before the labour board.
Mr Montgomery: I can give you an example of a friend of ours. She works for a Woolco store. They were open on Sundays. They were open on long weekends, statutory holidays. She was told she had to be there to do up the cashups. She was the head bookkeeper and she had to do up the cashups; that is all there was to it, okay? She was never suspended. She went in and did the job, but she was told she had to be there. It was not a case of you can go. That was her job, she was the head bookkeeper, she was required to be there.
Mr Carr: What about your particular union? Did you have cases of people being forced to work?
Mr Montgomery: No, in our particular case, you have got to understand under a collective agreement we have double time, so people are willing at this current time to work. I suggest to you that if we start getting into areas where specific stores are open under the guise of tourism, the company is going to come back and want to open up the double time system to a premium system and then we will start to have the effect of people not wanting to work Sunday. They are willing right now, due to the current economic climate and high mortgage interest rates, to line up for the double time at any point, whether it be Sunday or a statutory holiday or even in the evenings.
Mr Carr: I guess that is where some of the concern comes from, because people are saying on the one hand, "It's a family day and we're doing it because of common pause day, but if you give us time and a half or double time, we'll forget all that." In speaking to some of the unions, the fear is that, "That's okay now when not too many people are open, we can get time and a half, but if it becomes the norm, business will then come back and say: `It's now the norm. Sunday's just like any other day.'" Is it not a fact that your real concern is regarding the amount of money on a Sunday, that you would have workers if it is time and a half but if it is regular time people would rather stay at home?
Mr Montgomery: To begin with, we are not recommending our people work even on double time on Sundays, but again, you have got the people who will. I would like to point out one thing. When the Loblaws stores were open, the store managers were made to work. I had store managers coming to their assistants, who are in the bargaining unit, and produce people, whoever, and pleading with them: "Please work a Sunday so I can have one day off. I've been working seven days a week for six weeks now. I'm going crazy." Out of due respect to their managers, the guys were saying yes. They did not want to work, but they were agreeing due to the human aspect of it. That is a form of camaraderie that is in any workplace, and a person was not forced to, but out of the unwillingness to see a guy getting driven down -- the manager was forced to.
In the malls again, it was mentioned that some of the owners did not want to but the malls were making them. So to enforce it is very difficult. Maybe what the government should do is say, "Okay, everybody working on Sundays is triple time," and see how many of the retailers want to open then.
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Mr Miller: We are trying to have some foresight here. Obviously what we would like to see is the legislation to prevent all this, but at the same time we are not so silly as not to realize that we should try and negotiate now in case we do not get what we want through legislation. So we are going to try and get it in collective agreements to protect our workers from Sundays. There is no question about that; we would be less than honest if we did not tell you that.
Mr Morrow: First of all, brothers, I would like to thank you for taking the time to come down. There are just a few things I would like to talk about. You talked about the municipal option. As you know, under the proposed amendments that will be changed to tourist exemptions, which I am sure that you are rather happy to hear. I did not see it in the brief so I have to ask, how many members do you actually have in your local?
Mr Miller: In Local 175 we have approximately 46,000 members, and in the local that Wayne Montgomery comes from there are approximately 16,000.
Mr Morrow: That is a hell of a lot.
Mr Miller: That is right. Local 175 and Local 1008 are the largest UFCW locals.
Mr Morrow: This keeps coming up day after day: We understand that some 50% of the people in Ontario want to shop on Sundays, but if you flip that poll, you also understand that over 70% of the people do not want to work on Sundays. How does that compare with your membership? Is that a lot higher?
Mr Miller: I believe that of the membership in Local 175 the majority do not want to work on a Sunday. They want to have Sunday off.
Mr Morrow: You also raised another interesting point and I am just going to go back a little bit in time. You talked about triple time on Sundays. Under the previous administration they had a committee on overtime studying that. The recommendation by the then chair, Arthur Donner, I do believe, was that they make triple time on Sundays, and I do not think it went very far. Just in closing, I would like to --
Mr Sorbara: On a point of order, Mr Chairman: I just want to remind my friend that the NDP is now in power and can bring forward legislation bringing into law those overtime provisions. They can do it on September 23 when we resume Parliament. The voters made a decision on September 6 last year and now you guys have the opportunity to bring forward those measures. We are surprised, frankly, that you are not doing it.
The Acting Chair: Thank you for that point of information.
Mr Miller: Mr Chairman, I would presume that when this crossfire goes along you would allow extra time for us.
Mr Sorbara: I would sit another half-hour.
Mr Morrow: I would really like to thank you for being here and I also like Mr Sorbara's comment that you should help organize the unorganized.
Mr Miller: We took particular note of that.
Mr Montgomery: One more point before I leave: I was informed that --
The Acting Chair: We have one more question yet.
Mr Fletcher: Thank you for your presentation. You are really concerned with the enforcement aspect of this and I remember hearing about a story in Powassan of 30-some violations. This could probably be part of the reason that you want the enforcement. Can you expand on that?
Mr Montgomery: This is just a prime example of situations that are happening throughout the province wherein people are being charged for illegally opening and the fines are small enough that it really does not matter to the person. You have $1,500, $1,600 worth of fines here, right? And it really does not matter, he just keeps disobeying the law. Obviously it is not having any impact on the legal aspect of the legislation.
Mr Fletcher: About the store in Powassan, he had 30-some fines and violations and was charged with one and the rest were dropped. Is that my understanding?
Mr Montgomery: I thought he was charged 33 times, fined in one charge, and the other 32 were dropped.
Mr Fletcher: What was the cost of the fine?
Mr Montgomery: Five hundred dollars.
Mr Fletcher: For 33 violations and only one was charged and that is under the previous legislation.
Mr Montgomery: That is right.
The Acting Chair: Mr Montgomery, you had one more comment?
Mr Montgomery: That is what I wanted to bring forward. Your colleague picked it up.
The Acting Chair: Mr Miller and Mr Montgomery, on behalf of the committee I would like to thank you for taking the time out this morning and coming and giving your presentation.
Mr Sorbara: I thought there was a request to allow them more time.
The Acting Chair: That was used up.
Mr Sorbara: Oh, was it?
The Acting Chair: Well, it was 30 seconds.
ELK LAKE AND DISTRICT CHAMBER OF COMMERCE
The Acting Chair: I would like to call forward our next presenter from the Elk Lake and District Chamber of Commerce. You will be given half an hour for your presentation and you can either use the full half-hour for a presentation or you can cut it shorter and allow time for questions and comments from each of the caucuses. Could you please identify yourself for the record and then proceed.
Mr Pinkerton: I am Garfield Pinkerton, president of the Elk Lake and District Chamber of Commerce, owner of the Elk Lake Lodge Hotel in the tourist industry.
I see my colleague from the Ontario Hotel and Motel Association was here and made a presentation, so I will not go through exactly what he covered. The one thing that the chamber really wanted was to not be the buffer zone in any disputes on opening on your tourism criteria. They would also like to know what terms of reference you are using for tourism criteria.
I will ask these questions after when we get into question period, but tourism, as my colleague had stated, has changed drastically in Ontario in the last few years. In our area we have noticed a downdrop of tourism, in some places 15% to 30% this year so far. We have found that we do not have the travelling tourist that we used to have in bygone years. The tourist today wants to know exactly what it is going to cost him when he leaves home and until he leaves your tourist establishment and goes back.
Businesses are starting to advertise in Europe and the United States. We have changed our snowmobiling in the winter to accommodate travellers coming from the United States through Sault Ste Marie to Hearst and from Hearst they come down through our area, through Temagami, back around, over to Sudbury, Sault Ste Marie, back up and then load the stuff on the Algoma Central Railway and go back. In tourism of this type there are going to be a lot of changes in businesses. Businesses are going to have to remain open to accommodate the machinery that they are using and equipment that breaks down.
Another type of tourism we are finding is tourists that come in and buy a piece of property, build a cottage. They are from the south and they have 14 days' holidays. When they come up, if there is anything deteriorated over the years they have to be able to buy the products any day of the week to fulfil the obligation of keeping that camp ready for the next year.
Like I say, if you try as the chamber of commerce to set the criteria or to help set the criteria, it would have to be done prior to a tourist season whereby businesses are going to be allowed to be open. In some areas in our place, we have businesses that are phoned on a Sunday -- "I need a door, I need pipe for my sewage system, I need this, I need that" -- and hardware stores will open, the lumber yard will open to accommodate them. But I do not feel they will do this if legislation is in place that they are going to be fined, as the different types of unions have said to me, if they are going to do this.
I think we are going to have to take a very close look at this. I was talking to one of the young ladies from the tourism and she was telling me that you had gone with the Canadian Federation of Independent Business and had talked to it in setting some of the legislation. I think you should go back to them and on their voting system, their mandate system, have them put some of this in whereby tourist operators have a say, because this goes out to all the tourist operators pretty well across northern Ontario. This way, you are getting the few in my area from the tourist association and the chamber of commerce, but you are missing a lot of the other areas, outpost camps, stuff like this, that need the areas for shopping, when people are going in and coming out. They come at all different times, nights and days, so I think this is one thing that you are going to have to look at very closely.
Like I say, the chamber does not want to have any part in the acceptance of that and I do not believe the municipalities I have talked to do either. Rather than go through everything that has been covered in the bills, I think this whole thing is down as to having the Lord's Day as a day of rest, but there still has to be a certain amount of business carried on to keep the economy moving in the province.
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Mr Jackson: Thank you for your presentation. I recognize that you did arrive early today and have had the benefit of watching the previous presenters. I appreciate your focusing on some areas that have not previously been covered this morning.
In your district, do you have a business improvement area or --
Mr Pinkerton: We are an organized township. We have a municipal council of which I am a member.
Mr Jackson: The legislation calls for a chamber of commerce, the local improvement area, business improvement group or tourism and recreation board. Is the chamber the only --
Mr Pinkerton: That is it.
Mr Jackson: Okay. That is what I wanted to establish.
We have heard from previous chambers that they would only approve members of their chamber and would hope not to have any part of being called upon to make decisions on behalf of non-chamber members.
Mr Pinkerton: Yes, I understand that. I had this question asked of me because in our area we have a sawmill and they have tourism tours. The fellow said, "Would you sanction me to run the sawmill on Sunday?" I do not think I would want that option. I would likely be shot.
Mr Jackson: The other point was that it would be suggested that the chamber would routinely pass them to avoid any acrimony or any misunderstanding or any potential litigation.
Mr Pinkerton: This is one of the things that people do not want, the chance of litigation coming back on the shoulders of the chamber. Most chambers up in our area do close down over the summer because everybody is pretty well in the tourist business, other than the bush workers so it is pretty hard to get anyone in. Like I say, if you had to open up on a Sunday or anything like that and you phoned the chamber, we do not have a chamber that operates all summer.
Mr Sorbara: First of all, can you just describe to us again the area that is covered by the Elk Lake chamber and your territory?
Mr Pinkerton: We cover Elk Lake, Gowganda, Shining Tree and Matachewan. These are all small tourist areas. The only actual industry is the sawmill in Elk Lake. They haul timber from up the other side of Shining Tree. That is just about it. The rest is all tourist camps and a little bit of mining.
Mr Sorbara: If the province in its wisdom allowed the good people in those communities to decide for themselves whether a store could or could not open on Sunday, do you think that would have a negative impact on the quality of life in your communities? Do you think you could exercise that responsibility with maturity?
Mr Pinkerton: I think most people are not going to stay open if they are not making any money. The whole object of owning a business is to make a profit and keep yourself in a half-decent lifestyle. I do not want work 24 hours a day if I do not have to.
Mr Sorbara: What about the people who work in those stores? Do you think they can make a decision for themselves as to whether they want to work on Sunday?
Mr Pinkerton: They make decisions every other day of the week. If they are partying and do not come to work in the morning, if they did not want to work on Sunday they sure would not show up either.
Mr Sorbara: If they chose not to work on Sunday, do you think the employers in your communities would take retaliatory action -- fire them, discipline them or give them the night shift or something like that?
Mr Pinkerton: It would be pretty hard to do because it is pretty hard to find employment in these areas to begin with, so the employer and the employee work pretty close together.
I always say to my employees -- I am in the liquor industry plus the food industry and accommodations; I have canoes and everything else that goes with it -- "If you get into the partying a little bit too much, don't bother showing up; just phone me and let me know and I'll go and get somebody quick, or if you can send somebody in to replace you, all well and good."
Mr Sorbara: In other words, if the government simply withdrew this bill and left the decision up to the municipality, things would not be so bad in Elk Lake.
Mr Pinkerton: I do not know whether the municipal government would want to sanction this here. This is the problem we are having. Take a look at last year. We had this same fiasco, and they threw it over on to the municipalities, and the municipalities said no, they did not want that responsibility.
Mr Sorbara: So if no one had it except for the storekeeper, that would be the best of all?
Mr Pinkerton: I do not know. We will have to look at it. I can speak for myself. If I do not make any money, I do not want to be open. I would just as soon close if there is nobody there. Why aggravate myself and pay hydro and water bills?
Mr Sorbara: But the point of this legislation is that the provincial government under this bill wants to tell you that you have to close.
Mr Pinkerton: But why should I have to close?
Mr Sorbara: Well, that is what we cannot quite understand either.
Mr O'Connor: I want to thank you for coming here today. To further elaborate on what Mr Sorbara has raised in the geographic location, could you expand on what the economic makeup of your area is, the businesses?
Mr Pinkerton: We have a sawmill, we have three logging contractors. In the small communities on Highway 11, within a 30- or 50-mile radius of us, we have a waferboard plant, we have Dymond Clay Products Ltd. This is the whole of the district, but in our immediate area we have mostly tourism and the sawmill. There is a small bit of mining exploration going on, but it is very minute due to the Indian land costs.
Mr O'Connor: So is your chamber made up of representatives of different businesses as well as retail?
Mr Pinkerton: Yes. Pretty well everybody in the area is a member of the chamber of commerce, any business.
Mr O'Connor: And how large would the retail portion of that be in the makeup of your chamber?
Mr Pinkerton: We have a couple of grocery stores -- they are small stores -- a hardware store, a lumber yard.
Mr O'Connor: When the issue came up and before you came before us, did you do any polling or bring it up at a chamber meeting to try to get a feeling from the chamber of what it felt with this legislation?
Mr Pinkerton: They had talked about the fact that if somebody needs a pipe for their septic system, they want to be able to go and get it.
Mr O'Connor: But you never did any actual polling?
Mr Pinkerton: No. We are so spread out that in the tourist season you have a hard time getting to all your members, because we close down for the summer. I just hit the immediate ones in Elk Lake and Matachewan, and I talked to a couple of others on the phone, because you just do not have time to get out and they do not have time to come in.
Mr Fletcher: From what I understand you would like your municipality or your area to remain open to help the tourist industry. If your lodge or what have you needs something, they can go to the store and pick it up if it is for plumbing or something like that. Is that a correct assumption?
Mr Pinkerton: We have to, because in the last couple of years we have lost pretty well all our major employers in the area. We lost two mines, a sawmill; the lumber industry is down, and the construction industry. We have to do everything we can to keep the area going.
Mr Fletcher: The draft regulations for retail business in the second part say the retail business establishment "shall be in an area that meets the tourism criteria set out in subsection 1(2)." One of the characteristics is that it "provides goods or services necessary to tourist activities in the area served by the establishment." So basically, we are meeting your needs if the stores that you need to promote and enhance your tourist area can remain open. That is what the provision is saying.
Mr Pinkerton: Yes, but you have the unions fighting to keep them closed.
Mr O'Connor: Right. But under the tourist exemption --
Mr Pinkerton: This is where you are going to have your battle.
Mr O'Connor: I do not want to --
Mr Pinkerton: No, I do not want to believe that either. But I am saying there are things that are going to happen --
Mr O'Connor: One of the things the unions are saying is, "We just want the right to refuse to do the job," and also the other part as far as the enforcement is concerned. But under the tourist exemption, if you are providing goods or services necessary to tourist activities in the area served by the establishment, then you are meeting that criterion. So that criterion is there for your purpose.
Mr Pinkerton: That is okay, but when it comes to landfill, where people come up for six, seven or eight days, they need trucks; they have to have a bulldozer, a front-end loader. Does this come under your tourism criteria?
Mr O'Connor: If it is there to provide for your tourist area, then maybe it does.
Mr Pinkerton: The one question is, what are your terms of reference for the tourism criteria?
Mr Sutherland: Just give me a little bit of history in your area. Basically you have always had Sunday shopping. The businesses and the operations there have operated on Sunday to meet the needs of the people coming in for tourism, yes?
Mr Pinkerton: They try to, yes.
Mr Sutherland: Do you know of anybody in your area who has been charged for opening on a Sunday?
Mr Pinkerton: Nobody in our area has because we have very few policemen.
Mr Sutherland: Fair enough. But here the tourism criteria are broad enough that they should allow all the operations in your area to open on a Sunday.
Mr Pinkerton: This depends on what your criteria are.
Mr Sutherland: Are any of the businesses in your area unionized? You expressed concerns about what they were saying.
Mr Pinkerton: Yes, some of them are.
Mr Sutherland: The grocery stores?
Mr Pinkerton: No. These are small. They are in the vicinity.
Mr Sutherland: I guess based on the information before us that the tourism criteria are broad enough.
Mr Pinkerton: In some areas. There is one area that it is not. We have a fairly large bookstore right on the main highway. I think it is 216 or 261 square feet of floor space in order to keep a bookstore open or closed. The one we have on the main highway is known throughout the north for its books and it should be open because that is where tourism does go.
Mr Sutherland: But with some minor exceptions, things are not going to change that much for the group that you represent with this new legislation?
Mr Pinkerton: No, I do not believe so.
Mr Sutherland: So Mr Sorbara's comment that this legislation is going to tell you to close down is very inappropriate and would not seem to be correct based on what you have just told us, where things are not going to change. Those who have been open will continue to be open.
Mr Pinkerton: To a certain extent, yes. I am saying as long as your criteria do not change.
The Acting Chair: Mr Pinkerton, on behalf of the committee I would like to thank you for taking time out this morning to come and give us your presentation.
Just a reminder to the committee members that checkout time is 1 pm.
Mr Ceyssens: Mr Chairman, one very brief point for the clarification of members of the committee. A bookstore is permitted to open if it has 2,400 or fewer square feet. It does not have to be quite as small as the gentleman suggested.
The Acting Chair: Thank you, legal counsel. We will now recess for lunch until 1:30.
The committee recessed at 1143.
AFTERNOON SITTING
The committee resumed at 1335.
NORTH BAY AND DISTRICT LABOUR COUNCIL
The Acting Chair (Mr Cooper): I call this meeting back to order. I would like to call our first presenters, the North Bay and District Labour Council. Would you please come forward? The format will be that you will be allowed a half-hour for your presentation. You can either use the full-half hour for your presentation or you can make a shorter presentation and allow questions and comments from each of the caucuses. Could you please begin by giving us your name for the record and then proceeding.
Mr Campbell: Art Campbell. I am the president, North Bay and District Labour Council. On behalf of our labour council, we wish to come and raise our concerns on Bill 115, on Sunday shopping and working. Our North Bay and District Labour Council is pleased to have this opportunity to appear today before this standing committee on administration of justice to present our views on Sunday shopping and working.
First, I would like to commend the government for bringing forward legislation to keep a common pause day in Ontario and providing the necessary restrictions on Sunday shopping and Sunday working. Under the Retail Business Holidays Act, RBHA, at present we fail to recognize the rights of workers to a common pause day. Under the act, we would like the act amended so that it recognizes holidays and Sundays as common pause days, days when most businesses are not open to regular business and days on which most people do not have to work.
Leaving the decision-making to the municipal councils simply does not cut it. There should be more clear and precise direction from our government. It is too vague as it stands at present, in particular the regulations on criteria for the tourist exemption. Under the Retail Business Holidays Act, sections 1 and 2 and section 4.1 of the new amendments are so broad they effectively restrict no one.
Recommended changes to section 4.1 were clearly set out in a brief presented by our brothers, the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union. Our labour council stands behind them; that is to say, only retail business establishments in which the total area used for servicing the public or for selling or displaying to the public in the establishment is less than 4,000 square feet, and furthermore the number of persons engaged in the service of the public in the establishment does not at any time exceed four.
We also take exception to drugstores opening on Sundays and selling non-pharmaceutical or therapeutic materials for hygienic or cosmetic purposes. We have other small convenience stores that are permitted to open on Sundays to sell these items. We are cutting the throats of our small businesses by allowing this to happen. Small businesses in the community are our towns' lifelines. Most are finding it harder and harder to compete with the drugstore openings.
Currently under the act, the act has maximum fines of $50,000 for a conviction for illegal Sunday openings. Although there are no minimum fines, in most cases the courts are handing out fines of $300 or less upon conviction. This hardly gives an establishment that opens illegally on Sunday a second thought on the matter. They should be hit with a minimum of $10,000 and if that still does not do it, then go to the maximum. Once again, we are talking corporate greed and a sad day always when drastic measures have to be taken to make these violators of the law assume responsibility for their actions. It costs our taxpayers, paying people more to take them to court than what they are actually getting for a fine in the interim. They are laughing at you and me and every one of us.
The amendments proposed by the government to the act would lead to wide-open shopping and working, affecting hundreds upon thousands of workers and their families in Ontario. It is our labour council's belief also, as well as that of the Canadian Labour Congress, the Ontario Federation of Labour and the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, that these workers and their families have a right to a common pause day.
In conclusion, it is our labour council's intended goal to see that a common pause day is set aside for our retail workers and workers in related sectors and their families. We do not have to drive our families apart. There is enough going on in our society today to take care of that. With Sunday shopping and working we are just adding to the problems of our retail workers and our work-related sectors and their families. Too little precious time is spent on family life. That is part of the reason we see so much failure in the family structure today: divorces, legal separations and so on, so much abuse in our homes. Our labour council strongly believes that maintenance of family values and the establishment of a common pause day can be realized.
The Acting Chair: Thank you. Before we proceed with the questioning, could legal counsel get a clarification?
Mr Ceyssens: I just want to ask you one question. I was making some notes on your presentation and I did not get the point about the stores that your organization would prefer to allow to remain open. You said stores staffed by no more than four people and you also mentioned a size and I did not get the size. I wonder if you would repeat that.
Mr Campbell: Four thousand square feet.
Mr Ceyssens: Four thousand square feet and four employees.
Mr Sorbara: We have heard submissions from other labour councils and I think there is unanimity among labour councils so far, at least in these hearings, that there should be a common pause day, but there has not been any request that this committee consider expanding this bill to include the right to refuse work by other workers, say in the industrial sector or in other aspects of the service sector. Why is that? Why should we not give an absolute right to refuse work so that we could close down our major manufacturers on Sunday?
Mr Campbell: You have a right to refuse in the workplace as it stands. Believe it or not, a lot of people out there do not have the ability to stand up for themselves. What we are talking about is our organized labour force in the retail outlets. The other organizations in your small convenience stores and what not, that is their lifeline.
Mr Sorbara: We have this notion of a common pause day. The government says this bill is not about religion and is not about anything but trying to bring about a common pause day. To me, a common pause day would mean that any worker, whether he worked for Abitibi-Price, whether he worked for Sears, whether he worked for the government of Ontario, whether he worked in construction or whether he worked in any profession whatever, would have an absolute right to refuse to work on Sunday. District labour councils have been supporting this notion that the stores should be closed to protect the retail worker, but have not argued for other components of the economy; for example, the auto workers at General Motors. Why should we not give them the same right to a common pause day as we are trying to give to retail workers?
Mr Campbell: We do. We not only speak for the organized workers, but we speak for a lot of unorganized workers as well. We would love to see it right across the board, a common pause day for everybody, but unfortunately the mechanics of the thing are just not going to work that way and it is not feasible to even think or imagine at this time that it would work that way.
Mr Sorbara: Why is it not feasible? Why can we not close down General Motors on Sunday?
Mr Campbell: I would love to see that. You go ahead and do it.
Mr Sorbara: Is that the view of the Ontario Federation of Labour?
Mr Campbell: Pardon?
Mr Sorbara: I am just trying to find out whose view that is. The labour councils have not taken a clear position on whether every worker in the province should be off on Sunday.
Mr Campbell: Again, it is legislation that has been passed and it has been in the mechanics for a while. What we are suggesting is what we would like to see. We would like to see that come down and we would like to see legislation on that come down. We are just saying what our goals are and what our ideals are. Our ideals are that we would like to see a common pause day for everybody, not only the organized but for everybody. But if such is not the case, then we are going to fight for the organized to start with, and when I say the "organized," we also fight for the unorganized at the same time.
Mr Sorbara: What about the fact that about 75% of the people of the province would prefer to make their own choices on Sunday; that is, their own choice whether they work, their own choice whether they shop and their own choice whether they open their stores. In a collective agreement, if 75% of the people vote in favour of the collective agreement, it becomes the binding document. Here we have 75% of the people of the province saying the government should not be regulating in this manner and yet the trade union movement is saying, "Yes, you should." You want to close down the stores.
Mr Campbell: A lot of people do not have the will to stand up for themselves. That is what I am saying. They would sooner say, "No, we don't want to work on Sunday," but there is intimidation, and unfortunately intimidation is part of our everyday lives, especially in the workplace. When you tell your employer, "I don't want to work on Sunday," then he makes it hard for you. What are these people going to do? They have no choice but to work on Sunday. They do not want to, but they have no choice.
Mr Sorbara: Would you be surprised if I told you that the only people who have taken that view in these public hearings, that employers are greedy, that employers intimidate and that employers will find some way to coerce you to work, are the United Food and Commercial Workers and district labour councils?
Mr Campbell: I do not believe that at all, not for one minute. We are looking out for the rights of these people. A lot of people do not know what rights they have and they are intimidated into it, especially by their employers because their employers figure these people are going to work and if you are not going to work, they do not come right out and say, "You haven't got a job here tomorrow," but they make it damn well impossible to keep on working there.
Mr Sorbara: What do you say to the view that you really cannot do more than give workers the absolute right to refuse in the law? That is part of the law of Ontario. Are you telling us that this is going to be of no force and effect, and notwithstanding that, any employee who refuses to work on Sunday is going to get harassed by the employer?
Mr Campbell: No. What effect does it have now? We have the right to refuse in the workplace now.
Mr Sorbara: Under what? How do you have the right to refuse?
Mr Campbell: You have, under section 25, the right to refuse unsafe work and stuff like that.
Mr Sorbara: Certainly you have the right to refuse unsafe work.
Mr Campbell: Under this business, but if you give a right to refuse, that is fine for that Sunday, but next Sunday you will not have to worry about working next Sunday because come Monday you will not have a job.
Mr Sorbara: Do you think that is the general standard in the business community?
Mr Campbell: That is what the businesses tell their employees. They do not come right out and say it, but they make it well known that that is what will happen in the end.
Mr Sorbara: We have had perhaps 30 employers come before this committee who have said to us: "I would never require anyone to work on Sunday. I respect the right of my employees to make that determination and in fact I try to accommodate my employees to the greatest extent possible." Are they misleading this committee? Are they not telling the truth?
Mr Campbell: If they felt that way about their employees, why do they want to open on Sunday to start with?
Mr Morrow: I would like to just clarify one thing that Mr Sorbara brought forward about industrial workers working. We are dealing with the Retail Business Holidays Act here and I thought that was what these hearings were about.
I would just like to ask you a few questions if you do not mind. My impression is that Sunday shopping did not actually create jobs, but the hours of work were just more spread out. Can you comment on that.
Mr Campbell: Not speaking for other towns or municipalities but speaking for my own here in North Bay, when the stores did open on Sundays for a little while, a lot of the stores were losing business. They were not making as much business and it was useless for them to stay open. We got this from a lot of management.
The only reason they had to stay open was because they got it from their head office that they had to stay open because their competitors were opening, that if their competitors were shut down, they would shut down. A good case of that would be Zellers. If Zellers had shut down, no other retail store in North Bay would have been open at the time, but because of corporate greed -- like I said, it all comes back to corporate greed -- and because this sector would not shut down, then the rest had to stay in line with everything else.
Mr Morrow: How many workers do you actually represent? I should also add that the mayor of this fine town agrees with that last statement.
Mr Sorbara: On a point of order, Mr Chairman: The presenter's last comment was to the effect that it is all about corporate greed. My friend Mr Morrow has just put on the record that the mayor of North Bay agrees with that view. Is he telling us that the mayor of North Bay told us that it is all about corporate greed? That would be a gross misrepresentation of what we heard this morning.
Mr Morrow: No. What should have been said there is that he agrees that the big stores want to stay open. I assumed that is what the presenter was saying.
How many workers does your local labour council represent?
Mr Campbell: I do not have an exact figure, but we have 60 affiliates of our labour council and it goes anywhere from 60 employees up to 100 and some employees.
Mr Fletcher: It is good to see you again. I just want to get back to some points we were talking about before. You were talking about being coerced. Mr Sorbara said that is not going to happen and everything else. Mr Sorbara should know because he was once the Minister of Labour in this province.
One of his colleagues who stood by him at the time when he was Minister of Labour -- a good friend of his, Mr Rick Ferraro, who used to be the member for Guelph -- stated publicly: "Employees are jeopardizing their jobs by refusing to work. An employer will eventually find someone who is willing to work on Sundays." That came from a colleague of Mr Sorbara. That came from someone who stood by this person in the government when it was passing its legislation to protect the workers in this province. I think he is fully aware that there is coercion that goes on in the workplace and that there is a need for protection.
What kind of protection, as far as this bill is concerned? Do you see it as being adequate protection or should it be strengthened?
Mr Campbell: I guess there are always safeguards to be taken and you can never add too much to anything to look after the people and their rights. When you are talking about coercion, he is talking to management and I am talking to labour. I get a different story from labour than he is going to get from management, obviously. I have lived it. I have gone through it. I know for a fact, because my wife was working and they told her that if she did not want to work on Sunday, she may as well pack it in now and not come back to work on Monday. She is working part-time now instead of full-time.
Mr Sorbara: Could we know at what business establishment that was?
Mr Campbell: I do, but I am not going to bring it up here and now.
This is in fact taking place. The companies can tell you that they are not doing that, but when you are on the work site, I know for a fact it is taking place.
Mr Fletcher: You do not want to publicly state it. Why not?
Mr Campbell: Because my wife is now back working and I cannot afford for her to lose a part-time job now. I have been out of work for two years myself. If she loses her part-time work, I am done.
Mr Fletcher: Yes, I know. Again, we are talking about coercion and the threat of losing the job if it is publicly stated.
Mr Campbell: That is right.
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Mr Lessard: You know that the mayor, Stan Lawlor, was here this morning and expressed his thoughts and the thoughts of city council with respect to this matter. Have you worked with them in formulating their position on Sunday shopping?
Mr Campbell: No, I have not. We have been out on separate issues. We have lobbied over Sunday shopping and the mayor was in full support of that at the time, although I guess he could not very well jump out there in public, but he did agree in principle with what we were doing.
Mr Lessard: He indicated that there is a lot of support in this community for the concept of a common pause day. Do you get that feeling?
Mr Campbell: Yes, there is. We are a small community. We are not like Toronto. We do not have two million people. We have 50,000 people. We are a small community and we need some time together with our families. Our family structure is suffering today, and not only because of Sunday working and shopping. It adds excessively to the pressures put upon them if they are forced to work on a Sunday. Our family lives are deteriorating terribly around here. We do not have the demand that Toronto would have with two million people. We have 50,000 people and the demand is just not that great for Sunday shopping.
Mr Lessard: If I understand your submission, you said you would like to have a common pause day for all workers in the province. That is the ultimate goal, but you have to be reasonable in dealing with some seven-day operations; so through collective bargaining you try to get as much right as you possibly can for people to have that common pause day. Is that not right?
Mr Campbell: That is right.
Mr Lessard: Your concern is for people who are unorganized and who do not have the opportunity through collective bargaining to get that protection.
Mr Campbell: Unfortunately, a lot of these people are not able to stand up for themselves. We not only speak for the organized but we also speak for the unorganized. When we try to get something for one group, we try to get parity for the other group. We do not favour one group over the other because we are organized and they are not. What we would like to see is everybody having the same thing straight across the board. We have always fought for that.
Unfortunately, the stores I am talking about are small convenience stores, corner stores and stuff like that. These are seven-day operations; they have been in existence since I do not know when. But that is their livelihood and that is how they have maintained their stores. Like I say, a common pause day we not only argued for the organized but also argued for the unorganized who do not have an opportunity to speak for themselves.
Mr Sutherland: Mr Sorbara referred to a survey indicating that 75% of the people support Sunday shopping. I have not seen one that says that. I think the statistic I heard was 57%, but at the same time we hear --
Mr Sorbara: You have not been on the committee except for today.
Mr Sutherland: I do try to keep up on things and I have not seen that, but maybe that is the case.
We also have a survey which says 67% of the people do not want to work on Sunday. What do you think the results would be if you combined those two questions? If you said, "Do you favour Sunday shopping if you had to work on a Sunday?" how many people do you think would support Sunday shopping then?
Mr Campbell: Speaking for myself -- I do not know how everybody else thinks -- if I had an opportunity not to work on Sunday, I would not work on Sunday.
Mr Sorbara: We have a few more minutes and I would like to ask the witness a couple more questions if that is possible. We have not used up the full half an hour yet.
The Acting Chair: Go ahead.
Mr Sorbara: I am concerned about what you said about the situation that your wife was in with her employer. I appreciate that you want to maintain anonymity for her and the employer, but it seems inconsistent to me, particularly given your position on the district labour council.
I was Minister of Labour for some two years and I know the kind of problems that arise in the workplace. Workers have hassles with workers' compensation claims, for example. If a worker has a workers' compensation claim, do you advise the worker not to bring it up because he or she is going to get hassled by the employer?
Mr Campbell: First of all, I would like to ask you what that has to do with Sunday shopping.
Mr Sorbara: It has an awful lot to do with Sunday shopping because the law says that employers shall not do that. That is a violation of a law passed by Parliament almost three years ago; that kind of intimidation represents a violation of the standards that we have established in this province. There are other standards as well, like workers' compensation, unemployment insurance, vacation pay and certainly health and safety. It seems to me that the responsibility of a district labour council is not to advise workers to bury the complaint for fear of being hassled, but to pursue the complaint.
If a worker is not getting a just return from the workers' compensation system, then you have the responsibility to pursue that, and the same goes with unemployment insurance, and the same goes with just about every other right of the worker in the workplace. Surely to God, you cannot be advocating that workers not pursue their claim to refuse an unreasonable assignment of Sunday work.
Mr Campbell: I certainly can because I am in that particular circumstance myself, and that is what prohibits me from doing this. If it was under other circumstances, I would agree wholeheartedly with you. But I have been in a labour dispute for the past two years and I have not worked for two years. I get $80 a week strike pay, and if I lose my wife's part-time work, then I am up the creek without a paddle.
I do not care to divulge that information right now because I have to do whatever I can to survive. Under normal circumstances I would be fighting tooth and nail. But with all the bureaucracy that goes on around here, and being on strike, everything I do is an uphill battle. You know, you can only take so much. An extra straw can break the camel's back. I am dealing with all that I can deal with right at this time.
Mr Sorbara: The point I am trying to make is that I hope you would not leave the impression -- and the fact is that other labour organizations have left the impression -- that it is no use putting up a fight to refuse unreasonable work, or to win an absolute right to refuse, because employers will ignore it. The guy who is now the Minister of Labour, the member for Hamilton East, used to say that right was not worth the powder to blow it to hell. Now he has got it in one of his own bills.
I say to the labour councils: If that is the worker's right in the law, then by God, let us enforce it. Let us make sure that everyone who wants to refuse an unreasonable assignment of Sunday work exercises that right, and that his brothers and sisters in the labour movement stand up with that worker. I am surprised that the district labour councils are saying it is no use putting it in the law because employers will disregard it, and you cannot enforce it. You can, and you have to.
Mr Campbell: We cannot do this alone. We need your help also. We look for input from wherever we can get it.
Mr Sorbara: That is why we put it in the law, and that is why these guys are putting it in the law.
Mr Campbell: We comply with whatever legislation comes across. If it is in favour of our brothers and sisters who are working, then we will stand up and fight tooth and nail for it. No problem about that.
Mr Sorbara: Good. Let us start enforcing it. I do not believe employers are driven by corporate greed, and I do not agree that most employers will retaliate against an employee who refuses an unreasonable assignment of Sunday work.
Mr Campbell: Obviously, you have not been in the workforce for a while.
Mr Sorbara: But I do agree that if an employer does that, the worker has a right, and the worker's right should be enforced, and district labour councils and trade unions ought to help those workers enforce those rights, whether or not they are trade union members.
Mr Campbell: You have a point there. But, again, when you come down to the retail sector, a lot of them are not organized.
Mr Sorbara: I know, but that should not matter.
Mr Campbell: It should not, no. Like I said before, we fight whether they are organized or not organized. If they come to me with a problem, and I can help them, I will. But when you get to an unorganized business, and the management tells them, "Either you work or you are fired," a lot of these people, because they are unorganized, do not know they can come to their North Bay labour council or their MPP or whatever. They just figure, "Because I am not organized, these guys have the last say."
It comes down to intimidation again. The bosses can intimidate the workers. It happens.
Mr O'Connor: One thing we have heard from Mr Sorbara, and one thing that needs to be brought up, is the fact that most of the employers who have come before us have stated, without question, that they believe they would never interfere with their workers' rights. Coming from a trade union movement myself, I sometimes wonder why there is a trade union movement, why there is that need. If all employers are truly as honest and representative of what we have seen -- do you feel that maybe some sort of bias is being put before us?
Mr Campbell: You know yourself, if you have gone through collective bargaining, what happens there. You had to fight for everything you got in there, and if you do not continue fighting, the company tries to take it away from you.
We have a new owner who took over the company 12 years ago, and who is now trying to take away everything that we gained over the past 23 years from the previous employer. You cannot tell me they are looking out for the rights of the worker. What they are looking out for is to line their own pockets.
Mr O'Connor: There is one more thing to be brought up under employment standards, and I would like to pass that on to my fellow member.
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Mr Fletcher: In the legislation that was passed by the previous Liberal government, the Employment Standards Act provides retail workers a general right to refuse an assignment of Sunday work which they consider unreasonable. If there was a dispute, it was up to the employee to fight like heck to get anything.
That is one thing about this bill: It gives an absolute right to refuse. I think that is the difference. I know what it is like when you have a right to refuse unsafe work and the hoops and barrels and everything else that you have to go through. You can still be disciplined and be fighting it for years.
Mr Campbell: Just to stop you for a second, when you have the right to refuse in the workplace, you know the employer can go to the guy just below you and ask him to do the same job, and intimidate him because he does not have the knowledge you have of why you are refusing the job. Again, it comes down to intimidation by the management. They will get whoever they can to work, however they can.
Mr Fletcher: The amendments to the Employment Standards Act under this bill give employees the absolute right to refuse work, not just unreasonable work.
The Acting Chair: Mr Campbell, on behalf of the committee, I would like to thank you for coming out this afternoon and taking the time to do your presentation.
Mr Sorbara: Mr Chairman, just as we are bringing up the next witness, on a point of order: I noticed that in Mr Fletcher's line of questioning earlier on, he referred to a quotation from the former member from Guelph, Rick Ferraro. Perhaps it is not directly a point of order, but it really does reduce the standards of this committee when Mr Fletcher tries to attack my line of questioning by somehow suggesting that the person who is indeed my friend, and a former member of this Parliament, took a view that is perhaps slightly different from the view I am taking in my questions.
I have not fully expressed my views about this bill. I do not intend to do that until such time as we finish the public hearings. I have tried to ask questions that probe and challenge witnesses. I do not mind if Mr Fletcher wants to continue to dig out quotations from former members. That is an interesting exercise. But I just want to put it to you, sir, that it reduces the standard of questioning that we are trying to maintain in this committee. I wanted to put that to you, sir, in the form of a point of order.
Mr Fletcher: We will remember that in question period.
The Acting Chair: Point well taken, thank you.
ONTARIO MARINA OPERATORS ASSOCIATION
The Acting Chair: Our next presenters will be from the Huntsville-Lake of Bays Chamber of Commerce. They are not present yet? In that case, can we have the Ontario Marina Operators Association? You will be allowed one half-hour. You can use that for your presentation or give a shorter presentation and allow time for questions and comments. Would you please identify yourself for the record, and then proceed.
Mr Mackenzie: My name is Bruce Mackenzie, and with me is Bill Paris who is president of the Ontario Marina Operators Association. I am the vice-president of the association.
I would like to thank you on behalf of the 400 members of the Ontario Marina Operators Association for allowing us to be here today to present our thoughts on the Retail Business Establishments Statute Law Amendment Act.
Ontario is home to approximately 700 marinas and many of the parameters that control the marine industry are common to the tourism industry. They are: the need to operate our seasonal businesses on any day of the week, and the need for all businesses that affect tourism to be free to open seven days a week. We are not here to speak to the history of Sunday shopping versus any other day. Today we are here to speak to the importance of tourism, and how the marine industry is important to Ontario. We are here to speak to the need for Ontario to be able to compete equally with our neighbours to the south.
Historically, marinas have been able to operate freely because they have been considered tourist-orientated. But for the marina industry to thrive, and the tourist industry to grow, the whole province must be conscious of the need to service all types of tourism, and the importance of retail shopping to the attraction of tourists. The marine industry in Ontario is primarily a seasonal business, as are many tourism businesses in Ontario. It is not our choice for the marine industry in Ontario to be seasonal. It is dictated by our climate but, because of our tremendous water resources, the marine industry and water recreation are a very important sector of Ontario's economy.
Because boating and related activities are seasonal, there is limited time for the citizens of Ontario and tourists from outside of Ontario to make use of our waterways. On top of the short season, much of our society is weekend-oriented for its recreation. This is unfortunate, for it only allows two days for the tourism industry to offer our services. If any one of these days were removed, it would have devastating effects. On holiday weekends the situation is worse, with only one day to carry out business when the potential is for three.
Many marina operators see up to 80% of their business carried out on weekends. This cannot be done in one day. Service facilities could not handle the crowds and the quality of experience for all would go downhill. And what about the members of the public who only have Sunday available to pursue their recreational interests? The marine industry, like all of the tourism industries, must be available to provide its services when they are required by the public.
Many of us in the marina industry work with a 12- to 16-week season, and because of school vacations being restricted to July and August, some members of the tourism industry are looking at an eight-week season. These shortened seasons make it even more important for the service sector to be able to operate seven days a week.
Revenues must be obtained at every chance available in our short seasons, because without the revenues we cannot continue to employ staff, put funds back into the facilities and produce a profit which attracts new investments and developments.
I am sure this committee will hear from representatives from Tourism Ontario, and about how many jobs are involved in tourism in this province and how many dollars are involved. Tourism is big in Ontario and has unbelievable promise, but it can be killed. Our short seasons, high levels of taxation and high cost of gas has put a tremendous damper on tourism and we do not need any new roadblocks. Look carefully. Our season is condensed into 12 or 16 weekends. No one can afford half of this time to be lost.
The free trade agreement was not an act of Ontario, but because we are in Canada and our biggest trading partner is the United States, we have to be able to do a better job to compete with them. Why? Because if we lose out to the competition south of the border, not only do we not get American visitors, but we will lose out on overseas visitors. And worst of all, we will lose our own citizens and their tourist dollars.
Look at our climate. Every state south of Ontario has a longer tourist season because of warmer climates. Florida, in the Sunbelt of the southern United States, can attract visitors 12 months of the year. Do you think they are looking for ways of reducing services to tourists? No, they are not. They are doing everything they can to increase their tourist dollars, whether they are generated from within each state or from out of state.
Tourism fits very well into Ontario's goal of sustainable development. There is very little consumption of resources. Oh, they are used, but not in the way primary resource extraction and manufacturing uses them.
Look at our norther communities. Temagami was a mining and lumber centre. It is a bust. Why? Because the resources these industries counted on were finite. But tourism can go on for ever and create more jobs, and they will not go away next year like forestry jobs. Better still, look at Midland and Collingwood: Shipbuilding has gone and the grain industry has dwindled in the Great Lakes, but tourism and recreation are providing jobs in those communities.
The lakes will remain. Fish and wildlife can be self-sustaining. Take a look at the Kawartha lakes. What generates more jobs there, lumber or tourism? The growth in centres like Huntsville and Bracebridge is not based on lumber any more; it is based on tourism and recreation.
Tourism, because of our magnificent waterway heritage, is often water-oriented. The marine industry and marinas are the gateways for these resources on a continuous basis during our short seasons. These gateways work two ways: First, they provide our citizens with access to our waters; and second, they are the front door for American visitors to the communities on the Great Lakes and our heritage canal systems.
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The days are long gone when Ontario can act as if it is isolated and so powerful that it can enact laws that put its economic potential at risk. If each municipality in Ontario is given the power to decide what is a tourist area and what is not, then we are afraid the province of Ontario will become like the tower of Babel and will eventually fall under its own weight. Ontario must assure all businesses that they can operate under the same rules no matter where they are in the province. How can we expect businesses to feel welcome in Ontario if the businesses must deal with the personality of each different municipal council? Ontario cannot reach its full potential in tourism if tourist areas are just spots on the map.
The question of cross-border shopping is very disturbing to Ontario's economy. Look at Sunday shopping and our blue laws. This is just another reason why cross-border shopping is so prevalent.
Ontario must stand back and take a fresh look at its position in the global marketplace and realize that it must clearly present itself to the world as having open doors to tourism. Ontario must recognize itself as a tourist area and let the marketplace make the decision for businesses, when to be open and when not to be. Tourism is the third largest industry in Ontario and we should be here today encouraging it, not whittling away at it.
When we look at other industries like manufacturing and transportation, there is no common pause day, and the concept of it is as inconceivable for these industries as it is for the hospitality industry. The province of Ontario must recognize the fact that the retail business is not isolated from the rest of the economy and the tourism business. It is a vital part that cannot be turned off.
Ontario marinas and the tourism industry must provide uninterrupted service to our patrons seven days a week all year or for however long our season is. Our employees willingly accept this fact as a precondition to employment in an industry which is totally dependent on good service, goodwill and professional hospitality. Employees in our industry are treated with dignity and respect by employers whose businesses are so dependent on staff attitude.
The vast majority of workers in Ontario, including retail establishment employees, are protected under the Employment Standards Act. It is very costly for employers to hire and train staff in our industry and most others, and it is in their best interest to operate well within the existing labour laws. Any employee can be asked to work at any time by employers beyond normal working hours, and many are anxious and willing to do so. However, no employee can be discriminated against for not accepting work outside of normal working hours. Thus there is no need to establish any new law to protect worker interests beyond that which already exists, particularly one which is totally biased and discriminatory in favour of one type of worker.
The government and the people of Ontario must recognize how many thousands of jobs would be created if retail shopping were allowed to operate freely seven days a week. While some people may be trying to protect certain working conditions of some retail employees, this exercise could end up to be terribly upsetting to the employee when the job disappears outright because the employer can no longer compete.
Recommendations:
1. That the Ontario government recognize the value of retail shopping as an important factor influencing tourism in Ontario, and that Sunday and holiday shopping has become an economic necessity for many citizens of Ontario as they struggle to balance working realities with personal and family responsibilities.
2. Remove the possibility of municipal governments to create a hodgepodge of regulations and a very disjointed picture of tourism in Ontario.
Please remember that Ontario tourism can continue to be one of the key industries in this fine province in the future, but not if we continue to throw up roadblocks to its growth. We are part of a global market, and I am afraid this market does not stop for any day and especially not on a weekend.
This committee and the government of Ontario have a difficult decision to make if you look at what has happened in the past. But if you look to the future, with an expanding global economy, free trade and the need for an expanding tourism industry that will provide long-lasting, self-sustaining, fulfilling jobs, then the decision before you today is easy.
Mr Daigeler: Thank you for your presentation and for appearing before us. After two weeks of hearings that we have had now, I almost have the impression that this is shaping up as a battle between the union movement on the one side, and the hotel and motel and tourism-related industries on the other side, the one arguing, "We have to stay closed," and the other one saying it is extremely important for the survival of the province, for economic prosperity, to stay open.
I am trying to get a sense as to where that urgency on your side is coming from at the present time. Would you have made the same kind of presentation with the same kind of urgency some two or three years ago when our side, the Liberal side, made some changes to the Sunday legislation?
Mr Mackenzie: I do not see any difference between my stand on the industry today and where it would have been two or three years ago. We feel basically that Ontario sometimes and in some areas shuts it doors to tourism. We do not compete equally for tourism as some of our competitors do. We are here today asking the committee to look at the possibility of allowing businesses to compete freely with our competitors and provide the services our visitors and the public rely on or require.
Mr Daigeler: Would you be able to tell me whether your colleagues had the same kind of view you had two or three years ago? Has it always been a strong consensus within your industry that Sunday shopping should be available?
Mr Mackenzie: I cannot speak for the whole tourism industry, but I think I can speak for myself in two ways: one, again back to being able to compete and to being open when a person or a business is required to be open; two, as a person who has worked weekends half the year for the last 14 years, I enjoy working weekends. I get to enjoy the province on my days off during the week and I do not get tied up in traffic. That is just a little personal note. I do not think the industry has changed that much in the last couple of years.
Mr Sorbara: Are you Mr Paris?
Mr Paris: I am Paris. This is Bruce Mackenzie.
Mr Sorbara: Mr Mackenzie, do you own a business?
Mr Mackenzie: No, I do not. I work for a public agency.
Mr Sorbara: What is the name of that agency?
Mr Mackenzie: The Hamilton Region Conservation Authority. I operate a marina for them.
Mr Sorbara: Do you have employees who work on Sunday?
Mr Mackenzie: Yes, sir.
Mr Sorbara: Do you have difficulty hiring a workforce for Sunday work?
Mr Mackenzie: No, sir.
Mr Sorbara: If an employee refuses to work on Sunday, are you likely to intimidate that employee or change that employee's hours of work?
Mr Mackenzie: No.
Mr Sorbara: What do you do when an employee says, "I'd prefer not to work on Sunday"?
Mr Mackenzie: Generally my schedules are flexible. I operate seven days a week. Some staff have to have Mondays and Tuesdays off and some have to have Saturdays and Sundays off, so generally they are only working five days a week. As I said earlier, the people who work in this industry come to us knowing that we are a seven-day operation and that 80% of our business is done on weekends.
Mr Sorbara: Okay. We just heard from the North Bay and District Labour Council and the witness suggested to us, unfortunately, that this business of Sunday shopping was driven by corporate greed and that there is a significant number of employers who in some way or other will punish an employee who works on Sundays. You are speaking on behalf of the association. In your view, would the employers in your association punish an employee who for one reason or another could not work on Sunday?
Mr Mackenzie: I do not think so. I can only speak for myself and the answer is no.
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Mr Sorbara: Do you think other employers that you know in retail businesses punish or intimidate their employees?
Mr Paris: If I might comment on that, Mr Sorbara, I have been in the marine business for 35 years and we have people who choose to work on Sunday and people who do not choose to work on Sunday. That is a ground rule that we have always respected. The majority of our employees are long-time employees and if they choose not to work on Sunday, it has never been problem for us.
Mr Sorbara: Can I ask you then, Mr Paris, in your experience with other employers in the area or other employers in the same industry, is it a standard of practice that employers would accommodate, or is it the standard of practice that employers would intimidate, punish or in other ways mete out some sort of unfair assignment of hours if an employee refused to work on Sunday?
Mr Paris: You would definitely accommodate the employee's wishes. That is why you have long-time employees. Employees that are attracted to the tourism industry obviously feel there may be some obligation to work on Sunday and, if they have a problem with that, we address that problem.
Mr Sorbara: Is it your view that you are in business on Sunday because of corporate greed?
Mr Paris: No, sir, it is competitiveness; it is a short season and it is the economic times.
Mr Sorbara: Are there times when the realities of your business are that you are not going to make a profit and you are not going to make ends meet and you have to absorb the loss at the end of the day?
Mr Paris: That has happened in the marina industry on a quite regular basis over the last couple of years.
Mr Morrow: It was very nice hearing your brief. You claimed that if retail stores were allowed to open seven days a week it would actually create jobs?
Mr Mackenzie: I believe so.
Mr Morrow: Let me read you something and then I will ask you that again. I have a brief here submitted by the United Food and Commercial Workers to the standing committee on finance and economics, April 18, 1991, and I will just read one paragraph:
"UFCW knows that between June and November 1990, 202 full-time jobs disappeared at A&P in Ontario. At Loblaws the total number of hours worked decreased by 3.14% in the period between June and December 1990." Now, remember, December is the prime retail sales time. "In both cases these losses occurred in spite of wide-open Sunday shopping."
Do you still think there would be jobs created?
Mr Paris: What was the date on that again, please?
Mr Morrow: It was during the time of wide-open Sunday shopping, June to December, 1990.
Mr Paris: At that point in time we were in the midst of a recession, and I think, if you look at a lot of segments of the industry, be it tourism or whatever, there was a decrease in shopping because people were tightening up their budgets because of the recession.
Mr Sorbara: On a point of order, Mr Chairman. I am entirely confident that Mr Morrow would not want to inadvertently mislead this committee or mislead the witnesses, but it should be --
Mr Morrow: Excuse me, Mr Chair, who am I misleading?
Mr Sorbara: I am saying I am sure you would not want to mislead, even inadvertently. My friend should point out that during that period A&P was going through a massive restructuring which accounted for most of the job loss. I would not want him to inadvertently suggest that it was due to Sunday shopping.
Mr Morrow: Excuse me, Mr Chair, I am just reading from a brief that was submitted to finance and economics.
The Acting Chair: Go on with the brief.
Mr Morrow: Thank you very much.
I also just want to make it clear -- after looking at your recommendations here -- that we are replacing the municipal option with the tourism exemption.
Mr Paris: We are well aware of that.
Mr Morrow: I was not sure if you liked the municipal option or not. Do you also agree with the absolute right of a worker to refuse to work on Sunday?
Mr Paris: One hundred per cent.
Mr Fletcher: Thank you for your presentation. Listening to you and also reading your brief, I get the impression that you feel we are trying to take something away from you. That is not the intention of this bill.
This bill recognizes the value of tourism and its contribution to the very activities that we see on a Sunday: the family going out and meeting friends and travelling throughout Ontario. In fact, when I look at the statistics from 1990, travel in Ontario from all origins increased by 18.4% over the previous year. That is what we would like to see, more travel throughout Ontario.
When I read the bill and look at the exemptions, I wonder exactly what it is you are objecting to in the bill. Is it the tourism criteria?
Mr Paris: No, we agree with the tourism criteria the way they are. We realize that we also fall inside the tourism criteria. We believe that some of the government's policies are making it tougher to attract consumers into the province of Ontario. I might just cite one thing. The last budget's 1.7-cents-a-litre increase in gasoline and the 1.7 cents in January converts to between 12 cents and 13 cents US a gallon. How many times do you have to swat the tourist on the head to get him not to come to this province?
Our people are going outside our province to shop in the United States now, and if it takes Sunday shopping to keep our Ontario dollar in Ontario, then that is what we should be addressing. We are exempt and we should have other retail outlets involved in keeping our tourists here.
Mr Fletcher: So Sunday shopping will in some way curtail people from going across the border to shop?
Mr Paris: I believe it will have an effect, yes.
Mr Fletcher: That is strange, because in 1990, when we had wide-open Sunday shopping from June until March 1991, Ontario residential travel to the US was up 21%. That was with wide-open Sunday shopping. So I fail to see the correlation between the two. These statistics come from the Ministry of Tourism and Recreation. Price is the biggest thing that attracts people, not the option of shopping.
Mr Paris: I have listened to some presentations through Tourism Ontario from the hotel and motel association in Toronto. Some of the figures they are quoting of late and over this past winter are pretty devastating, of people not spending their money and tourist dollars in Toronto.
Mr Fletcher: Yes, I know about Toronto.
You were also saying, as far as marinas are concerned -- maybe we can get an opinion. Mr Chair, could we get a clarification from legal counsel as to how marinas are covered in the Retail Business Holidays Act?
Mr Ceyssens: Marinas are covered under the exceptions contained in section 3 of the Retail Business Holidays Act in its present form. I can read that section out; it is very brief. Section 3 sets out a list of exceptions and in clause 3(7)(e) one of those exceptions is the servicing and repair of vehicles and boats. I would be happy to entertain questions to clarify any of that if necessary.
Mr Fletcher: Does it not also include the rental of vehicles or boats?
Mr Ceyssens: It does, in clause (d).
The Acting Chair: Thank you for that clarification.
Mr Sutherland: Just to pick up what Mr Fletcher said, British Columbia has had wide-open Sunday shopping for many years, yet it seems to lead the country in terms of cross-border shopping, so I am not sure where the relation is.
My basic question is: You represent the marinas in this province, but you serve people. Do you not want those people out on their boats on Sunday afternoon? Is that not the ideal time to be out on a boat rather than out Sunday shopping? I do not quite see why you would come forward and say we should have wide-open Sunday shopping, given the people you serve.
Mr Mackenzie: In the tourism business, which is season-oriented in this province, it is very hard to develop and run facilities that are so strongly oriented to weekends, especially Sunday afternoons. You are trying to gear up just for those four hours. If some of that traffic is spread out over the week, it makes operations much easier and the person who is using the facility gets a better quality of experience. People who come to our facilities on a Wednesday are treated royally because there are so few of them. On Sunday afternoon, you process them, you do not treat them.
Part of the point -- maybe I did not make our case strongly enough -- is that the marina industry would like to see retail shopping available to tourists seven days a week so that the province of Ontario is more attractive to tourists overall.
The Acting Chair: Mr Paris and Mr Mackenzie, on behalf of the committee, I would like to thank you for taking the time out this afternoon and giving your presentation.
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ACCOMMODATIONS/MOTELS ONTARIO
The Acting Chair: I would like to call Accommodations/Motels Ontario. You will be allowed half an hour for your presentation or you can submit a shorter presentation if you like and allow time for questions or comments from each of the caucuses. Please proceed by giving your name for the record.
Mr Hachkowski: My name is John Hachkowski and today I represent Accommodations/Motels Ontario. I also own two businesses within the city; both are related to tourism and also local. One is the Ascot Inn and the other is the Belmont Tavern.
It would seem from gabbing with these gentlemen behind me that tourism is a big factor today and is probably very vital to our industry. In fact, to the majority of us it is our lifeblood.
You will by now have received all the statistics and information reinforcing the importance of tourism. Make no mistake, with the decline in our manufacturing base; the moving of much of our production to the south, across the border, due to free trade; the restructuring of our resource industries -- the examples of Kapuskasing today, also Sault Ste Marie -- tourism and the hospitality industry take on a very important role.
When you have such things as major restructuring within the economy, the erosion of the tax base creates shortfalls in revenues. Government programs suffer, educational grants suffer, social programs suffer. Tourism, because of its intense capital investment, cannot just close up and move. It must be supported and reinforced so that it continues to grow.
Shopping is one of the important factors of tourism. In fact, probably for the majority of travellers, it is very important. Whenever we see people coming back from destinations, they always talk about their shopping, what they purchased. Whether we travel to Toronto, New York or Florida, we always manage to do some shopping. To arrive at a destination and have everything closed -- and I imagine each one of us has experienced that at some time -- creates an uncomfortable feeling within us. Remember, vacation time is limited, it is costly and you do not want to waste any of it.
Shopping has changed. It is no longer going out to get the basics of food or clothing. Today shopping is entertainment. Malls become village squares. Our own local Main Street is described as a quaint cobblestoned shopping area. It is a social gathering place. Tens of thousands of dollars are spent by retailers in design, lighting, merchandising, to attract customers. Today it is an entertainment industry. You go to the store not to buy, in many cases, but to browse or to be entertained.
The concept of a common pause day in Ontario is probably outdated. In our society today, thousands of people work at all hours of the day and night throughout the week, in the resource industries, processing, manufacturing, packaging or whatever. In our own industry, we are open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. It is the nature of the beast. Therefore, we must provide these products and the experience and service to our patrons when they want them, or we risk losing them; and today we are losing quite a bit.
I do not believe we have cross-border shopping just because we are not open Sundays. I believe it is because of price structuring.
Probably you have heard this before, because some of it is part of my association's message to me. Today governments sponsor all kinds of programs to train and employ youth, to supply suitable employment for displaced workers and to provide entry-level employment opportunities for numerous inexperienced and unskilled persons.
Most if not all of these persons are available to work, want to work and have a right to work whenever and wherever there is an opportunity to do so. Many of these people, and others, are or would be happy to work in retail business establishments on Sundays and holidays for personal, business experience or economic reasons.
The vast majority of workers in Ontario, including all retail business establishment employees, are protected under the Employment Standards Act. It is very costly for employers to hire and train staff in our industry, and most others, and it is in their best economic interest to operate well within the existing labour laws.
The majority of all tourism-related activities include retail shopping taking place on the weekends. Actually most shopping, about 80%, does take place on the weekends. Also, the Ontario government is involved in weekend work in terms of its major attractions throughout the province, in its little boutiques at different provincial parks. They also work, but they are not governed under the laws we are. About 20% of the gross weekly sales for numerous tourism and hospitality enterprises are amassed on Sundays and holidays, and remember, taxes are produced by these revenues.
I believe there should be one law that governs all of Ontario in terms of this, not individual municipalities, because then you will have sort of balkanization of the province. I am not saying that Sunday shopping is the it and the be-all of everything. What it does is reinforce the essence of service in the tourism structure within the province.
That is all I have to say.
Mr Daigeler: Thank you for coming before us and bringing us the message of the tourism industry. It has been a very forceful one. I used to serve on the standing committee on finance and economic affairs and I think it was about a year and a half ago that the tourism industry first made very strong representations about the future of the industry and that there was a problem. I am glad to see you fight for what I quite agree with you is a very significant element of our economy and all of our future prosperity, so I wish to thank you for making the point, even if the same point is made several times. I think it is of importance for all of us.
You are from North Bay. We heard a different message this morning as to what North Bay wants to be and what kind of lifestyle it wants to have. Under the old Conservative legislation there was the tourism exemption. Now we are going back to that again, the tourism exemption. Were there tourism exemptions here in North Bay? Were there areas designated as tourism exemptions, where people could shop? What was the experience then?
Mr Hachkowski: I do not know of any park that had an actual tourism exemption. At one time, our Lakeshore Drive was zoned under tourism/hospitality zoning and some of the stores on that particular stretch where they had many motels were open. The rest of our main street and our malls were closed on Sundays.
Mr Daigeler: Is this still the case, that these stores are open along the Lakeshore?
Mr Hachkowski: Some of them are. We have a major mall on the Lakeshore and that is closed. The smaller stores, like the tourism-operated stores, the little convenience stores, are open.
Mr Daigeler: In those days, then, was there much of a fuss about this, or did it work, or did other retailers feel they were being put in an unfair situation?
Mr Hachkowski: Not at that time, no. There was none of that feeling at all that I can recall. I think we are dealing with a whole different, shall we say, ball game here. The international competition for the tourist dollar is absolutely immense today. People travel beyond our borders. As a Canadian, I like to go to the United States. There is nothing wrong. Everything drops in half for me in terms of cost. That is a reality. I am not saying that because I have shopping here on Sunday we are going to have tourism, but as a tourist here I have an option that I did not have before. I can go shopping. If it is raining, what do I do? Sit in my motel room? I mean, it is a day where what am I doing? I can go to a mall, basically maybe for about four to five hours. That is all we are looking at probably, but I can wander around, whether I purchase something or not.
As I say, it is an entertainment business today. It is not a shopping business. Millions of dollars are spent in glorious malls. For what? To sell pants or shoes? You can do that in a regular type of thing. It is to attract people into these places. We are entertaining today. That is what it has come down to, unfortunately, but we are in a global market today. Go anywhere -- England, for instance. If you go to England, everybody is open Sundays. Everybody adapts. We all adapt. Humans have a great propensity to adapt to situations. In two years from now you will not even know that you had this problem. That is the way we are. You see, everything costs money today.
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Mr Daigeler: I presume that was the same thing when the legislation was struck down. Some people opened, others closed and it just went its normal way. Was that the experience here in North Bay?
Mr Hachkowski: In a way, yes. You sort of lost. We in North Bay, for instance, today have a very sharp decline in tourism. I do not know what you heard this morning. I have no idea. In my particular business, it is a definite yes. If the mall had been open, if that would have increased it, I have no idea. All I know is it has the tendency to reinforce, "Stay here." Look, enjoy the waterfront, but then maybe you want to go shopping Sunday. Maybe the wife wants to go shopping, I go fishing or I enjoy the waterfront, but I have these options.
Mr Poirier: We saw some material this morning. We read some editorials as to why it went down so much. I am sure you are familiar with the editorials you saw in the local Nugget and whatever. Did you agree with that, on the causes as to why it went down so much?
Mr Hachkowski: Sir, I did not have an opportunity to see what was in the paper.
Mr Poirier: What would you think is the main cause? Because this is very dramatic. They said a 20% loss last year, a further 10% loss this year. The mayor is saying he has seen about 10 American licence plates so far this year around the place. What is happening?
Mr Hachkowski: I think what is happening is that people are very fearful of the economy. Look what is happening north of us, in Kapuskasing. Here you have a whole community that is on edge. They do not know what is going to happen. You do not travel on vacation. You make sure you pack away the money you want. Kirkland Lake is in a bad situation. Sault Ste Marie is in the straits. Nobody is flowing.
Interjection.
Mr Hachkowski: In North Bay? Basically it is the economy overall. I think there is very little discretionary money in the system. Our cost of living is very high. Our taxation is very high. The realty tax to the city on our motel, for instance, went up by about a 46% to 50% increase from 1986 to 1990. That is significant. Every year you go up 5%, 7%, 8%, whatever. That is a very significant increase. I think it is just that people do not have the money to go on vacations. If they do, they are going to go for two or three days to see some specific item and come right back home. There is not that flow that you go on a long tour through Ontario and see all the sights. You do not have that any more. It is a different lifestyle.
What they were calling the yuppies at that time -- I guess I am a little older than that -- are settled down. They are having families, obligations to families. They are not as free with their time and their money any more. There are other commitments and obligations and responsibilities.
I think everything that can be done to attract and to reinforce what you have got has to be looked at very seriously. Remember, governments always like to get more money because that is where it all comes from. It comes from our generation of wealth -- making it, taxed on it -- and services. It all comes down to that.
Mr Morrow: Before I start, I would really like to clear something up that Mr Daigeler said to the last presenter. He said this seems to be starting to be a business-against-labour problem here. Well, no it is not, because we had small business in Sudbury and small business in Thunder Bay, plus the mayor this morning, say they were in agreement with this bill, so it is not one side against the other.
Having said that, thank you very much for your brief. It was quite interesting. I guess I missed it, but you said you owned a small business here in Thunder Bay.
Mr Hachkowski: North Bay.
Mr Morrow: North Bay, I am sorry.
Interjection: It's all right. We forgive you.
Mr Morrow: You travel around. You know what it is like. You also talked about the municipal option. Under the amendments to the existing legislation, we are changing the municipal option to tourist exemptions. I just thought I might like you to know that.
I have just a couple of questions. What does it cost you to actually operate on a Sunday? Do you have any idea?
Mr Hachkowski: Just to open the doors in the motel, because we are open Sundays, you are looking at $500 to $1,000 a day.
Mr Morrow: What is your cost on a weekly basis?
Mr Hachkowski: Right at the present moment I really do not have the figures for that.
Mr Morrow: The small businesses in Sudbury do not want to open on Sunday. The small businesses here in North Bay really do not want to open on a Sunday. I am just trying to get a fix on what you are trying to tell us. Are you trying to tell us that we should make them open so we can please your industry?
Mr Hachkowski: No. In my tavern today, I have the option of opening on Sunday. I do not, because I do not feel that the business is there. But I have that option. No one legislates me to say that I have to open or I have to close. The economics of the situation govern that. One day I might have to. I do not know. Personally, in this particular case, I myself am really not crazy about it but one day I might have to. It is the economics. Economics basically rule the roost. When the economics are good, everybody wants to improve everything. But when you take all the money away, then you have to dig in and work, because you need that.
Mr Morrow: Do you really feel that workers in Ontario should have an absolute right to refuse to work on Sunday?
Mr Hachkowski: That is a loaded question. First of all, I have employees in my businesses who have worked for me for 11 years and I have never had any refusal of any sort to work Sundays. Where we have scheduled everything, our back staff who will clean the rooms have every alternate Sunday off.
How would you feel to walk into a hotel and say: "There's your room. It's in a mess, but see, we don't have anybody working here Sunday because everybody wants it off. We'll give you the sheets, as management at the front desk, and you have to make up your room. Here's the brush to clean the toilet."
How would you feel? No, you feel good walking into a room that is fresh and clean. Somebody has to do it. You know, if we all did what we just wanted to do, we would be in an awful fix. We cannot do that. It just does not work that way. Maybe in some areas you can get away with it, but in our area we have to have clean rooms. It is just the nature.
Mr Morrow: What about walking into a restaurant, for instance?
Mr Hachkowski: Well, go in the kitchen. You might get something to eat if the cook is there. You say, "What am I doing here?" We are a service-oriented industry. We have to have people working on Sunday, and the people who work on Sunday do not seem to mind. If they need an extra Sunday off, they just let us know ahead of time and we reorganize the scheduling. My wife and I have come in on Sunday and worked because somebody has gone to a wedding or gone away for the weekend. There is no problem. It is a give-and-take situation. Maybe we get away with it because we are small and we have that flexibility. I do not know.
Mr O'Connor: I want to thank you for coming and making your presentation. I do not know if you were here earlier this morning, when the mayor was speaking. He had mentioned that they do not support the stores being opened on Sunday. That is the way the town feels. He left with a real interesting thought, though. He said he feels that when he attracts tourists to North Bay, he wants those tourists to leave knowing some of the finer points of North Bay -- the trails, the experiences, fishing in the lake and some of the fine attributes that North Bay has in itself.
I was just taking a look at the tourism criteria we have laid out, because we do recognize that tourism is a very important part of our economy. Given the criteria we have, do you think there is anywhere in there we should expand on the criteria to try to highlight tourism a little bit more, because right now we are open and we are talking about this. I would really be interested in having a little input, if you have thought about it. We have attractions -- the historic areas, the natural regions, the cultural, ethnic. I am sure you have gone through it all. Is there anything there that is missing that we should be adding to that to bring the tourists, to attract somebody from a foreign country? Because I do not think they come here to go to our malls. If we really want to attract the tourist aspect --
Mr Hachkowski: I agree with you. They do not come here for our malls -- especially in North Bay. But it is a reinforcement of what else is around. Remember that. If it is a rainy day, you know, you sit in the hotel. You can always go down and browse. You are entertained, remember. Malls are an entertainment entity. I mean, if you want a quart of milk, you go to the corner store. That is no problem.
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Mr Poirier: You cannot go to your tavern on Sunday.
Mr Hachkowski: No, not mine. Maybe one day.
This past weekend I spent time in Niagara-on-the-Lake and I looked around. The stores were open Sunday, yes, and people like that, spending money. There were a lot of Americans. True, the town's location gives it access to a massive density of population; but here was a thing, I think: government-sponsored theatres. They put up the theatres and they have created a beautiful environment of plays and whatever, and it attracts. These are the things that have to be reinforced.
I look at North Bay, for instance, and tourism, and our arts centre which could be the nucleus of something in that regard, expanding on the plays and using the school auditoriums which are tax-oriented to create satellite theatres. Maybe it will take 10 years, but in 10 years it will be viable. Maybe Tennessee Williams, maybe Chekhov, all those other plays that would not be competing with Stratford and Niagara-on-the-Lake, something totally different. Maybe in northern Ontario we could do that to attract people to this community.
Mr O'Connor: So there is a need to market our tourist attractions, maybe.
Mr Hachkowski: That is true, yes. When you go out travelling today I think you are going for an experience, not just to travel and to see what you can pick up here and there; you are going for a specific thing. I went to Niagara-on-the-Lake because of the plays. I go to Stratford because of the plays. I go to Toronto because of the attractions, the restaurants and the shopping. Men really do not shop. It is ladies who shop.
Mr O'Connor: With the tourist criteria, then, we should not be excluding areas such as that.
Mr Hachkowski: How do you mean?
Mr O'Connor: If there is no problem there, with the tourist criteria.
Mr Hachkowski: I think every community would probably argue that they fit the criteria for tourism when you start opening it up. I do not think they are going to say, "We're not in that area, so we're not going to fight for it." I think it has to be a blanket thing across the province.
It is very difficult to handle it piecemeal: "You're okay; I'm not okay. You're okay; I'm not okay." You cannot do that. All of a sudden you open up a whole can of worms that really does not help anybody.
Mr O'Connor: One of the finest attractions in North Bay, of course, is my grandmother whom I come to visit when I come to North Bay.
Mr Hachkowski: See, there you are.
Mr Poirier: And you go shopping with her.
The Acting Chair: Mr Hachkowski, on behalf of this committee, I would like to thank you for taking the time out this afternoon for coming in and giving your presentation.
HUNTSVILLE/LAKE OF BAYS CHAMBER OF COMMERCE MUSKOKA TOURISM MARKETING AGENCY TRADITIONS OF MUSKOKA LTD
The Acting Chair: I would like now to call forward Huntsville/Lake of Bays Chamber of Commerce, Muskoka Tourism Marketing Agency and Traditions of Muskoka. Thank you for coming this afternoon. I will allow you adequate time for your presentation. Then I will open it up for questions and comments from each of the caucuses afterwards. Could you please identify yourself for the record and then proceed.
Mr Bell: My name is Peter Bell. I am the general manager of the Huntsville/Lake of Bays Chamber of Commerce. I would like to apologize for being late. We were scheduled for 2 o'clock and I certainly appreciate the committee seeing us at this time and allowing us to make this presentation. I have a written brief and a number of copies that I will hand out. I am going to follow it a bit and would hope that you are going to ask questions.
The Huntsville/Lake of Bays Chamber of Commerce represents over 300 businesses in the municipality of Huntsville and the township of Lake of Bays, both of which are located in the district of Muskoka. Our membership includes both small and large businesses, many of which are retailers.
Traditionally, Muskoka has always been one of Ontario's premier vacation tourist destinations. In fact, Muskoka is quickly becoming a world-class tourist destination. A part of all world-class tourist destinations is shops that cater to tourists. We need to create the shopping experience that is part of being on a holiday. This means providing a variety and service that are world class, and this includes being open seven days a week.
The government already recognizes the nature of the hospitality industry through its employment exemptions. In Muskoka, 75% of our economy is tourism-based. As such, most businesses are in the hospitality industry. That includes the retailers. In building a world-class tourism destination, the businesses of Huntsville/Lake of Bays only ask the government for its support, not for more legislation. We support freedom of choice.
There are a number of points I would like to make today. Based on the tourism criteria, subsection 4(3) of the act requests that chambers of commerce submit a letter indicating that the organization supports the opening of retail business establishments. The Huntsville/Lake of Bays Chamber of Commerce was never consulted as to our willingness or ability to participate in this manner.
The Huntsville/Lake of Bays Chamber of Commerce is not a regulatory body, nor do we wish to be perceived as such. We could be open to legal liability from retailers whose applications do not receive support. On behalf of the chamber of commerce in Huntsville, I strongly oppose the delegation of authority and ask that chambers of commerce be deleted from paragraph 3(1)4 of the tourism criteria regulations.
Holiday shopping: Prior to this legislation being debated and becoming law, on July 15, 1991, the district of Muskoka passed a bylaw, 91-66, that permits retail business establishments to be open on holidays between the beginning of the Victoria Day weekend and the end of the Thanksgiving day weekend. This was done because there were a number of requests from local business retailers who found it was necessary and it was time to address this in Muskoka. The demand was there.
The members of the Huntsville/Lake of Bays Chamber of Commerce support this bylaw. To prove that point, between June 18 and 22, 1991, the chamber of commerce surveyed 163 of its members. They were asked the following question:
Do you support the proposal to allow Sunday shopping from the Victoria Day weekend to the end of the Thanksgiving day weekend? The result was 117 yes and 46 no, which is 71% in favour.
They were also asked, do you support the proposal to allow stores to be open on Boxing Day? The result was 91 yes, 72 no, which is 56% in favour. Based on this survey, the Huntsville/Lake of Bays Chamber of Commerce supported the bylaw.
The results of this survey indicate the following: (1) Since the Huntsville/Lake of Bays Chamber of Commerce is located in one of Ontario's premier tourist markets, members wanted to be able to service the tourists who expect to be able to shop on Sunday; (2) to provide freedom of choice for consumers, retailers, workers and families; (3) since we are a tourist-based economy, this legislation provides an exemption for the hospitality sector. Why should we discriminate against different industry categories, such as retailers?
It is clear that although opinions are diverse, the Huntsville/Lake of Bays Chamber of Commerce supports the freedom of choice relative to business holiday openings.
Mr Miglin: My name is Sven Miglin. I am the vice-president of the Huntsville/Lake of Bays Chamber of Commerce. I am also the president of a company called Alpine Adventures, which has operated canoeing, restaurants and tourist establishments inside Algonquin Provincial Park for the last 15 years. I am also the president of a company called Traditions of Muskoka Ltd, and it is in that role that I speak to you today.
Traditions of Muskoka Ltd operates two retail stores in Huntsville. Flotron's Huntsville Trading Co, which is about 7,000 square feet, employs about 25 people and is located on the main street of Huntsville. We have a second store called Traditions of Muskoka. It is about 3,500 square feet, employs about 12 people and is located at Blackburn's Landing in the centre of Huntsville. We retail ladies' and men's clothing and giftware. Flotron's also has a bath shop, housewares, a wool shop, etc.
Traditions of Muskoka believes that all retail businesses should have the right to determine which days of the week they can be open. It is unfair and discriminatory to require some retail-service businesses to close on Sundays, and clearly it is inappropriate to require all retail-service businesses to be closed on Sundays.
A retail business must have freedom of choice when it comes to determining the appropriateness of being open on a Sunday. It will make this determination by evaluating economic factors. If it is not profitable or worth while for me to open, then I will not. I do not believe I need legislation to advise me on whether or not the economics warrant being open or not being open.
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A business will consult its customers to determine if they wish or require it to be open on a Sunday. I like to believe I communicate with my customers to find out what they want and need, that they will vote with their feet and their pocketbooks on whether I should be open on a Sunday; that would be a very important form of input to me. Any successful business must. It will work with its staff to determine the feasibility of being open.
In our particular situation, in a tourist area, being open on certain Sundays of the year can be quite important. Given the current economic factors we can ill afford to forfeit this opportunity. A strong retail-service sector is important to a community such as ours. In Huntsville we tend to have a very, very busy summer and Christmas is not too bad, but the rest of the time is pretty quiet.
There is opportunity in the summer, we have a lot of visitors, and not to be able to have the opportunity to capitalize on that has a very real impact on the economic viability of a business such as ours, the taxes we provide and the people who work for us.
The employment opportunities created by being open on a Sunday are significant, especially to the student segment of our community. There are also other segments of our population which would welcome the additional employment opportunities. Any successful business must and would be sensitive to the concerns of its employees and would strive to accommodate them, either individually or collectively.
Personally, I think the time for the adversarial relationship that is fostered by many between an employer and his employees is long gone. I think that any good employer is very sensitive and aware of what is good for his employees. We work as partners together in any business venture. It is as much their business as it is mine. As we are sensitive to the concerns and issues they have, they are sensitive and concerned about the issues that we have. I think that, in most cases, successful businesses working together with employees can resolve a lot of the issues that surround something like Sunday openings.
In today's environment the retail industry is under tremendous pressure. Cross-border shopping and changing buying patterns are just two examples. We are often told that the problem is not just a tax or cost issue. We are told we must be more competitive and aggressive and that we must better serve our customers. Leaving the tax issue aside, I do not think I have enough time to tell you exactly how I feel about that. I agree that there is substantial room for improvement.
Clearly, our customers want the opportunity to shop on Sundays. Providing that opportunity is a more competitive and aggressive stance that better serves our customers. Do not legislate against such an opportunity.
On a larger scale, the tourism industry within our community and in fact within the province is also under tremendous pressure. Again, we must be more competitive and provide these visitors, our customers, with better service. They expect to be able to have a wide range of activities throughout their holidays, including Sundays. This range of activities includes shopping. Do not legislate against providing this activity. Shopping is a recreational activity. There is no doubt in my mind about that. In that sense, it is no different than bowling or going out for dinner.
It is indefensible to restrict certain retail-service businesses from being open on Sundays and then allow a large number of other retail-service businesses to be open. Why should a restaurant or a bowling alley be open on a Sunday and not a retail store? Why should workers in one industry be protected while workers in the other industry, such as a restaurant or a bowling alley, not be protected? They have families, they have friends they want to go and visit as well. There is a great inconsistency in the policies and the arguments as I see them put forth.
As with any major issue, there are arguments for and against any position. No position can satisfy all concerns. However, the position must be consistent and fair to all. It must not discriminate against or place undue restrictions on any part of the population. It must, as much as possible, respect the right of an individual or a business to have freedom of choice. Any legislation that is active on my behalf must adhere to these basic principles.
I thank you. I have a couple of copies of my presentation -- three, I was trying to save paper. Do you want to make more copies? I am not always sure where they end up if I make 20 copies.
Ms Dale: Thank you. I feel like the tail-end of the Three Mouseketeers. My name is Dale Peacock and I thank you for the opportunity of presenting to this committee today.
I am here wearing a number of hats in a number of roles: as chairman of the board of the Muskoka Tourism Marketing Agency, and as VP for tourism for the Huntsville/Lake of Bays Chamber of Commerce; I am employed as director of marketing and assistant general manager of Grandview Inn in Huntsville; and I serve on a tourism advisory group to Georgian College.
I suppose I would start by stating the obvious, and that is that tourism is a proven vital component to the economic success of the district of Muskoka. We have a history that goes back to the mid-1800s, which would further demonstrate that.
Based on certain research done by the Muskoka Tourism Marketing Agency jointly with the Georgian College tourism management group, direct spending by visitors to Muskoka in 1990 was $180 million, representing a very significant total of revenue from all sources. The plan to legislate a common pause day for Ontario, in my view, would be a severe blow to all tourism areas. I feel it is an outdated scenario. Obviously everyone in my business, for instance, works; they do not work seven days a week but we are open seven days a week, as the last gentleman said, 365 days a year. For the past 10 years, I have personally worked on Christmas Day as a message to others in my business who are called upon to do so.
Muskoka, with 175 resorts, hotels and motels, accounts for 45% of all the roofed accommodation in non-urban Ontario. We also support an additional 50 campgrounds. I think this certainly qualifies us as a significant tourism destination. Eighty per cent of the Muskoka tourism -- I think Peter used the number of 75%, so we will not quibble over 5%, but it is a very substantial percentage. A large percentage of all the Muskoka economy is tourism-based and this is per reports done by the Ministry of Tourism and Recreation from a number of other areas too that certainly, at the end of my presentation, I will be happy to detail.
The Longwoods Research Group, in a landmark $100-million study for the Ministry of Tourism and Recreation 10 years ago, examined the American perspective on Canada. They broke it down to province by province, covering Ontario very well as well. They examined that American perspective on Ontario, I will say at this point, as a vacation destination. Shopping was listed as one of the top five preferred activities of visitors to all of Canada. My own area of resorting figured 10th and my assumption prior to that time would have been that it would have been much higher. A similar study revisited those findings in 1990 and found that they still hold true.
With a major shift in market trends to short getaways of one to three days, the majority of social recreational visitors are coming to our area on weekends, necessitating the availability of one of their favoured pursuits -- that has been identified in a number of studies -- that being shopping, on a seven-day-a-week basis. This change in trends in the industry has exerted a tremendous pressure on the hospitality industry. Often in recessionary times an industry such as ours is one of the first to be affected and certainly one of the last to recover. We are buffeted on all sides by competition offering a host of amenities. An additional amenity that is part of the entire vacationing experience, in my view, is shopping extrapolated to Sunday shopping.
Of an anecdotal nature purely, I could mention that in the property that employs me we keep a sort of trivia tally throughout the summer months. One of the interesting facts is that while 5% of our guests asks us where a church is on Sunday, 75% of them ask us where they can go shopping or to buy something or pick something up to take home.
I am not making any kind of judgement on that, but I do not think Sunday shopping as an issue is contributing to the breakdown of the family. This is happening and attendance at church is dropping. We know all that. None the less, I offer it as an anecdotal suggestion only. We operate a couple of boat cruises and two shuttle bus services into the nearest town each day to transport those interested in shopping excursions, and these include Sundays which often have the best attendance for those looking for something to do.
In addition, Huntsville is the nearest shopping location for 600,000 visitors to Algonquin Provincial Park, one of the province's major tourist attractions. Eighty per cent of those visitors in shoulder seasons come for a weekend and in shoulder seasons that is when we need the majority of push. We all do reasonably well, certainly, on weekends and in high season. If we cannot make it then, we are probably out of business. But particularly when the weather is inclement, shopping takes on an added importance to the success of, and therefore the chance of a return visitor stay. I believe this in a very small part supports the principle of a tourist area exemption.
Looking at the criteria supporting the exemption, I would say that for the most part I support those items that are listed. I would add that it certainly must be broad enough that all tourism areas are correctly designated and thus protected, if you will. I would say that I do for the most part support the guidelines as set out under the heading "Tourism Criteria" on regulations made under the Retail Business Holidays Act. The only thing I might add to that issue would be the question of seasonal visitors, if there were a danger they then would be considered sort of non-tourists because they were not coming between the Victoria Day weekend and Labour Day, that scenario. I would certainly, in essence support a year-round designation to make sure that is clearly made part of the tourism criteria.
I thank you and at this point we are available for questions.
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Mr Sorbara: It looks like the three of you, representing another of Ontario's great tourist areas, are the final presenters for this week of Sunday shopping hearings. I just want to be clear about which model you prefer. I take it that you are ad idem, that you all agree on which model you prefer. I will try to describe a spectrum of options for Sunday shopping.
On the far right or left or whatever it is from your vantage point is the option that has no regulation at all, not even the regulation that allows a municipality currently to regulate store hours on any day of the week.
The next option is allowing municipalities to regulate Sunday in the very same way they now have authority to regulate other days of the week.
The middle option is for stores to be closed, but to allow a broad municipal option or the municipal option. That is what we have right now under the Liberal bill: stores closed but municipalities have a broad discretion, a broad freedom, to determine what stores will and will not stay open and can provide for unlimited opening.
The next option over is all the stores shall be closed, but there is a narrow option to open if you come within the tourist criteria. That is the NDP option. That is the bill we are considering now. You do not get to open unless you can fulfil the criteria relating to the maintenance or promotion of tourism.
The final option is where all the stores are closed and there is an extremely limited ability to open. That is the option that is currently being supported by the trade union movement and a number of fundamentalist religions that have come before us, including the Christian Lord's Day Alliance.
Which of those do you prefer? This is a skill-testing question. If you get the 10 points, you can go on to the next series.
Mr Miglin: Which door do I pick? I think that is a tough question, for me to speak on behalf of everybody, because even within our group and within the people in our community and within some of the people we represent or we just know, there is obviously a divergence of opinions on that matter.
I feel very comfortable in saying that the vast majority of people who are involved in the businesses -- that means employees as well; I do not mean just employers -- in our community support being open during the tourist season. I think that was shown by our survey. That was shown by the bylaw that was passed, I believe unanimously, by the district council. I was there. I saw the presentations being made, and they were mostly in favour of the recognition that we are a tourist area and that we should at least be open then. It is absolutely absurd to believe we should be closed as a tourist area.
Mr Sorbara: I would like to hear your answer on this as well, because you talked about freedom of choice: Another way of putting the question is, who do you want to tell you whether or not you can open on Sunday, and how much power do you want to give to that level of government or that individual?
Mr Miglin: I guess individually speaking, purely for myself, I would prefer there to see myself having the ability to make that decision. I would decide that it is a tourist area, that this is the time when the tourists are there and that it warrants being open. I am not sure that is shared by everybody in my community.
Mr Sorbara: I want to congratulate you on that view, not because I support it -- we are still in the midst of hearings. The fact is that in your particular situation Traditions of Muskoka has a wonderful competitive advantage under the bill these guys are proposing. You are under 7,500 square feet, so you are going to get the option, the advantage of a tourist exemption, but your competitor who is over 7,500 square feet is probably going to have one hell of a time opening. To say that notwithstanding you would have a competitive advantage, you want freedom of choice is, I think, rather laudable.
Ms Peacock: I do not need to really expand upon that. I do not believe it is something that should be legislated. I believe we should choose that option ourselves.
Mr Bell: As well, based on our survey at the chamber of commerce, I feel in talking to our members that most of them supported the choice. They did not understand why we had to deal with legislation every time it came to making a choice based on certain things. Under the guidelines that exist, which are the Liberal guidelines that the bylaw was passed under, obviously there were submissions made to the municipalities suggesting we should have Sunday shopping. They went through the 30-day waiting period. They put out the notice. We, as a chamber of commerce, went to our members and said, "What do you feel?" They felt it should be choice. I think that is number one if we have an option.
Certainly in Muskoka we are lucky that we come under two thirds of what has been proposed that you gave us as options, but once again, position A is freedom of choice.
Ms Peacock: I would think it may well be that I came with not quite enough information. I did not make that point very strongly because my understanding was that this particular bill has had two readings, that it is virtually a fait accompli. that it is more a matter of sort of protecting your own little area and making certain you make your point for our little corner of the world to be considered under the tourism criteria. If I was speaking for all of Ontario, which I am not doing, my answer might be different, and certainly my view on personal choice stands.
Mr Sorbara: As a practical matter, you are probably right that there is precious little the government is going to allow to be changed in this bill as a result of these hearings, but there always is hope. By the way, opposition is about hope. There is always hope.
Ms Peacock: Well, I suppose this government knows about that.
Mr Sorbara: Yes, they sure do. But you know what? They are going to find out a hell of a lot more about it in the years to come.
In any event, we are hopeful the government will see that the world has changed pretty dramatically over the past while and that the sense that people have matured and can make their own choices is really the reality of today and the emerging reality of tomorrow, but we will wait and see on that.
I have a question now in respect of the relationship of employers and workers. One of the most disturbing things I have heard during these public hearings is the view of the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union and the trade union representatives through the district labour councils. Their view is that there is widespread exploitation of retail workers and retaliatory measures taken out on workers who prefer not to work on Sunday. That really does disturb me, because if that is the case, I think we have a serious problem on our hands.
On the other hand, when we have heard from employers, the view they have expressed is that they try in every instance to accommodate their employees, their workers, and in most cases would not think twice about acceding to a request from an employee that he not have to work on Sunday. Many employers told us that they have a good, solid base of workers who are anxious to work on Sunday and do not have problems filling the hours.
I do not expect you to argue the case of the trade union movement or the United Food and Commercial Workers.
Ms Peacock: That is highly unlikely.
Mr Sorbara: They have an important role to play in this. I just want to know about your experience as employers and employer representatives, through the chamber.
Ms Peacock: My own experience, remembering that I am a member of the hospitality industry, is that we are open, as I have said, seven days a week, 365 days a year. Sunday is one of those 365 days. I would probably say that in our industry there is such an acknowledgement that the possibility of working on Sunday or Christmas Day or New Year's Day or your mother's birthday is very great that you may feel compelled to steer away from that industry if you have an absolute aversion to any of the above.
I can only speak on behalf of my own property and that is what I am doing. We have a couple of people on staff who are evangelical Christians. They have been able to work it out with their department head that they get Sunday off, or at least if they do work Sundays, they work one Sunday a month as opposed to all Sundays a month or whatever. I think we are very sensitive to the needs of our employees, as anyone in the service sector must be if you are going to hold on to good employees and consequently that really does come down to a bottom line, a business decision for you. We are not that nice necessarily; it makes good sense to do that kind of thing and we do it. Sven can speak for himself. Speak for yourself, Sven.
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Mr Sorbara: I want a follow-up question on that. Are those evangelical Christians who are allowed not to have to participate in Sunday work denied promotions, given the less desirable hours, held back in job advancement?
Ms Peacock: No, absolutely not, and for the most part I must say I really -- I am one of two senior managers there. We run the business on the day-to-day basis. Most often it is not even a matter I or my boss, my co-worker, has to deal with. Most often people are able to work it out within their own departmental level on a very co-operative basis. We are grown-up people here.
Mr Sorbara: By the way, the bill does not provide workers in the hospitality industry the absolute right to refuse work.
Ms Peacock: I understand that.
Mr Sorbara: Your workplace is not affected by the present bill. In Traditions of Muskoka --
Mr Miglin: Again, I cannot speak for everybody else, I can only tell you how things have gone with myself. One of the two stores I operate, Flotron's, has been around for 22 years. I bought it a year and a half ago. A lot of long-time staff had been working there eight, 10, 12 years. It had never been open on Sundays because the previous owners did not believe in being -- for whatever reason they never did open it on Sundays.
When the municipality passed a bylaw on July 15 or whatever I was faced with opening Sundays. I had opened a few Sundays in December. I went to each one of the staff and I explained why I felt it was necessary to be open Sunday, the limitations I thought were reasonable -- we would not open in September because it was not worth it and that would mean fewer Sundays. We would not open Boxing Day because I had heard, quite understandably, that they were really upset about Boxing Day.
I said, "I can live without that," but the Sundays in the summer I need. It had been a pretty brutal winter in retail, make no illusions about that. We were actually shut down with a fire beside us for four and a half weeks, which just compounded things, so I said, "We can use these Sundays." I explained to people why I wanted it and said: "If somebody wanted to work more Sundays, I'd be happy to accommodate you. You want more money, more hours? Great. If you want an additional day off in lieu let me know. If you don't, if you just want to work that extra Sunday that week for the five hours, let me know and if you don't want to work Sundays, let me know."
Everybody filled out the sheet and I made a schedule accordingly. Those who wanted to work more Sundays worked more Sundays; those who said they would do the bare minimum just to keep us open did. One individual said she would not work Sundays and she did not work any Sundays. I did not schedule her.
Ms Peacock: Did you fire her, Sven?
Mr Miglin: No, I stuck hot needles under her fingernails.
That is how I attempted to resolve the situation with the staff and it appears to be working quite well. I have no illusions that they would have been happy not to have been working Sundays, but I think many of them said they understood why. They all wanted to have jobs last winter. In fact, I was proud that this winter we did not lay off one individual. Out of all my staff I did not lay off one between the two stores. It was very tempting to do that. When the fire shut us down I got the cleaning guy to hire my staff for two or three weeks because he needed people and they needed a paycheque. So I think there are ways employers and employees work together to resolve the issue.
Ms Peacock: Without legislation.
Mr Miglin: Yes. It is not to pretend there are not employees who exploit it and there are not employees who are unfair to their companies, but I think the great opportunity exists to work together.
Mr Sorbara: Is the fact that you are able to utilize a Sunday market part of the reason why you did not have to lay off any employees this year?
Mr Miglin: In the broadest sense, if you do well enough during the summer you can keep them around in the winter. I think you have a moral commitment to keep as many of them employed as you can in the winter. They are entitled to a paycheque as much as possible. I came up with a number of schemes. At that point, no, I did not know about Sundays, truthfully, because it was last winter. I did not know what was going to happen with Sundays.
Mr Sorbara: I do not expect you to speak on behalf of other employers, but do you think your approach to your relationship with your workers is atypical, out of sync with what the standard in retailing is?
Mr Miglin: I do not know. I think most successful companies have got to work in partnership and co-operation with their employees. That does not mean they all do; that does not mean they cannot influence control for power in certain circumstances. Some probably do. I have no way of really knowing to what extent, but if you are successful in any business your employers have to be partners.
Mr Sorbara: I do not have any further questions.
Mr Lessard: Thank you very much for your presentation. I just want to make a couple of points at the outset before I ask you some questions. It is true that your chamber of commerce should have been consulted prior to this provision going into the regulations. That may have been a mistake, but that is one of the reasons we are here on this committee going through the province right now. It is a draft regulation and we want to hear what people have to say about it.
I know that is not the role you feel you want to be involved in, but I get the sense that you feel there is a role for the chamber to play because it seems as though you got involved in Huntsville in trying to encourage council to pass this bylaw and you have surveyed your members. But do you feel there is any other role the chamber might play with respect to this issue?
Mr Miglin: Certainly a proactive role. Coming to this meeting is a role a chamber of commerce can certainly play. I do not think our role is necessarily a letter indicating that, yes, tourism should be part of the district of Muskoka. Legislation in itself is put forth by a government and it is our position to either influence before or afterwards, either in a proactive or a reactive manner. Our chamber of commerce certainly prefers the proactive approach we are taking in this stance.
Mr Lessard: Does the bylaw passed in Muskoka have any restrictions in it with respect to hours of opening or the types of businesses that might open?
Mr Miglin: No, the only restrictions are in the time frame, Victoria Day weekend to Thanksgiving and including Boxing Day, but other than that there are no restrictions whatsoever. Just to go over that bylaw, there was not a letter sent by the chamber of commerce requesting that. It was a request by a number of retailers in our community to district. District put a public notice in the newspaper and made announcements of a 30-day public notice period and had a public meeting. The public meeting influenced their decision; their decision was a unanimous one. So that is how that process went. I think that is the role of a governing body such as yourselves.
Mr Lessard: Did you attend the meeting yourself?
Mr Miglin: I certainly did.
Mr Lessard: Could you tell me about some of the submissions? You have mentioned economic considerations and customers and the opportunity for employment, but we are concerned as well with the quality of life of the employees and the people who live in the municipality. Were those sorts of submissions taken into account and made?
Mr Miglin: I was certainly there; there were 12 submissions in support of Sunday shopping and six against. I think that is a very strong vote. In fact, one of the submissions was made by an employee of Economy Fair, Herb Title, and I am sure Herb Title probably has sat in front of this committee at some point in time or will: Herbie's Drug Mart or something like that. Her comments were that as a student the Sunday opening allowed her extra hours and extra income for the upcoming season. In fact, jobs were so slim this year for students, that was an opportunity she just relished. All of a sudden she could get more hours in.
There were submissions made in the negative sense that they did not agree with it. Those were usually done by the owner-operated businesses, that the common pause day allowed them that one day of holiday. But I think we go back not to legislation but choice once again, and base it on choice. The municipal bylaw does not require all businesses to be open. It allows businesses the choice.
Mr Lessard: You must represent those small owner-operators as well --
Mr Miglin: I did.
Mr Lessard: -- in the chamber and you must know about their concerns, that if they do make that choice not to open on Sunday it may affect the wellbeing of their business. Do you not think that is a legitimate concern?
Mr Miglin: What do you think is a more legitimate concern, one affecting a majority of employees and employers or one affecting the ones who base their decision on, "I don't want to be open so I have to force everybody else not to be open"? What stand would you take?
Mr Lessard: I am listening to what people propose as how we can balance those considerations. That is what we are interested in hearing. But we want to make sure people do not feel that compulsion to open or close for ever. If they have to open, and that is something they do not want to do, that is a consideration as well.
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Mr Bell: You like the idea of choice as well?
Mr Lessard: Do you not feel owners would feel compelled to open if larger stores opened?
Ms Peacock: A survey was sent out by the Huntsville/Lake of Bays Chamber of Commerce to the membership. That is what we are speaking on behalf of, and the majority of the membership is made up of small business owners. I am not sure, really, what the percentage is of large versus small business, but it is very small business, many of them owner-operated businesses. The tide would have been turned, I have been thinking, in response to the survey had that been a unanimous feeling, even on behalf of that one segment.
Mr Bell: Yes, 75% of our membership is made up of owner-operated businesses, so I think you could extrapolate that out of the numbers we came up with. I certainly could break down the 163 that actually responded to the survey to how many are owner-operated and how many are big businesses for you. I would suggest it was in support.
Your question has not been answered yet, would it affect their business? I think if it was based on economics, once again we are coming down to a choice, that if there is money to be made in a certain period of time in our community, which there is during a short period of time, they would make the decision that yes. I do not think it is a question of shopping in one store and building a clientele and not servicing it. It is based more on whether there is money to be earned and when it is to be earned.
Mr Lessard: There is also the quality of life issue that they have to consider. If they are working six days a week, do they sacrifice that free time and work the seventh day?
Ms Peacock: We have a very narrow window of opportunity in Muskoka in some ways. Certainly we operate year-round -- the majority of our businesses do -- but none the less it is about a four-month period that virtually carries the other eight, at least to a certain degree.
I think back 25 years ago when I was growing up in Huntsville and we had -- it is a choice. I think Peter knows what I am going to say. We had retailers then who closed Wednesday because they felt like it, and some closed Monday because they felt like it. That is fine. Others opened Friday night, but some did not. It was like something out of a Marx Brothers movie to go shopping. It is like a crap shoot: Who is going to be open and who is not?
What has happened over the last 25 years in Muskoka has been a real degree of sophistication, probably born of dealing with a sophisticated market. Muskoka is one of the premier -- I hate to use this word -- sort of upscale tourism destinations. I think what has happened -- and I see this again from talking to hundreds of people, I suppose, over the last few years in my numerous roles -- people, whether owner-operated businesses or not, are very much coming to grips with the fact that if you are in business, you are serious about being in business, and if you are serious about the business of making a success of your business, there are certain issues that must be faced.
We would all, I am sure, in many ways love to be off every Saturday and Sunday. That would be great, but that is not the world we live in. We live in a very competitive world and particularly, as I said, buffeted from all sides with competition, and I think even those owner-operators have simply acknowledged that. They feel that the quality of life is improved by the success of their business, as opposed to being negatively impacted by the addition of another workday.
Mr Fletcher: Thank you for your presentation. I have two things to bring up and the first one is the Traditions of Muskoka. What is the square footage of that?
Mr Miglin: About 3,500.
Mr Fletcher: I am interested in bylaw 91-66, which sounds interesting. You are open from the Victoria Day weekend, which is in May, until Thanksgiving, which is in October, on holidays and Sundays, and then the other times after that, except for Boxing Day, you do not open on Sundays. Is that true?
Mr Bell: On Boxing Day we are not open. Sven has made a choice not to.
Mr Fletcher: Right. The bylaw says you can open on Boxing Day, but other than that you will not open on any holidays any other time of the year.
Mr Miglin: According to what the bylaw allows us, yes.
Mr Fletcher: What if I were a business person, I moved to your area and I wanted to open every Sunday of the year? The bylaw does not permit me to do that. I do not have that choice.
Mr Miglin: It does not.
Ms Peacock: I think they should have that choice. We have some classic examples of winter-oriented business -- Schreiner's, B.M. Sports. They are very aggressive, very hard-working, very competitive. They obviously would want to be open Sundays in winter, and I support their desire to do so.
Mr Fletcher: But the bylaw says that I can only open at a certain time.
Mr Miglin: First of all, the three of us did not draft the bylaw. That was obviously how it was drafted, and I presume that the powers that be, the municipality, can act if somebody chooses to be open outside of that. It is by no means a perfect solution, but it seemed to be a solution that the local politicians decided upon. I am not sure I grasp your question. It is obvious if somebody came there and wanted to open in November, they could not legally.
Mr Fletcher: Right. You have drafted legislation saying I lose my freedom of choice, your municipality, that 56% of your people are in favour of. You have drafted legislation telling me I do not have the choice.
Mr Bell: I do not think we have drafted legislation. A proposal was made by district council. We reacted to that by serving our members based on that proposal, and made that presentation based on that. To correct you, it is not 56%; it is 71% in favour of it.
I think what you are getting at is, we would prefer to see choice, but dealing with legislation is one of the problems that we have. We have to deal within guidelines and the framework of what we are given. If we had open Sunday shopping and choice, you would probably find that a number of retailers would still be open between Victoria Day and Thanksgiving because that is our prime tourist time and that is what the traffic really requires. It is an economics question.
Mr Fletcher: Let me try and get to the point.
Mr Miglin: The answer to the question the way I think you put it is that survey was not one that says that the businesses wanted to be closed for the rest of the year. I think it is inappropriate to read into that that the 71% said, "All we support are being open on Sundays between Victoria Day and Thanksgiving, and we support being closed the rest of the time."
Mr Fletcher: No, what I am reading --
Mr Miglin: In front of them was a proposal saying that this is a bare minimum.
Ms Peacock: It was the lesser of two evils, so to speak.
Mr Miglin: Do you support being open then or do you support being closed in that period of time? It did not address the rest of the Sundays and cannot be extrapolated to reflect their opinion on that.
Mr Fletcher: All I am saying is that you supported that piece of legislation, whether it is municipal, provincial, federal, and your members did support: "Do you support the proposal to allow Sunday shopping from Victoria Day weekend to the end of Thanksgiving weekend?" and 71% are in favour, "Yes, we support this." What I am saying is, what your council has done is take away the thing you relish most, and that is choice, and you supported that. Yet you are here today --
Mr Sorbara: May I rise on a point of order, Mr Chair?
The Acting Chair: No, come on, Greg. You had your time.
Mr Sorbara: My friend Mr Fletcher is badgering these witnesses. They have made it clear over and over again that they described the bylaw under which they are operating it. They did not claim authorship of the bylaw. They do not claim responsibility for the bylaw. They have made their position clear, and Mr Fletcher is trying to put words in their mouth, suggesting that this is their preference when they have made the point that is not the case.
The Acting Chair: I am sure you are quite correct.
Mr Fletcher: Am I badgering? I apologize if I am badgering.
Mr Miglin: I have had worse.
Mr Fletcher: I thought so.
Ms Peacock: He has had worse from me.
Mr Miglin: I think that we have answered questions to say that we are practical people. There was a bylaw in front of us. We were not going to get anything but that bylaw. We had just come through a tough winter. We all knew that legislation was in front of the Ontario government to deal with the issue in the fall, so let's pass that, let's get the summer out of the way, and we will take it from there, as opposed to making a firm stand in principle saying, "You give me every Sunday or you give me none." We were not prepared to do that, rightly or wrongly.
Mr Fletcher: What happens to your bylaw if this piece of legislation that we are proposing goes through and you put in as a tourist area and you are accepted and you can have wide-open Sunday shopping? That means this bylaw is gone. Is that right? I mean year-round Sunday and holiday shopping?
Mr Miglin: You are the politician. You tell me. Is that what happens?
Mr Fletcher: I suppose the provincial legislation would override the municipal legislation.
Mr Miglin: It was passed after July 4, therefore it is killed right away.
Mr Fletcher: Right, after July 4.
Mr Miglin: You tell me what would happen then. Would the bylaw become invalid?
Mr Fletcher: Yes.
Mr Miglin: I presume it probably would be. That is our understanding.
The Acting Chair: Is that correct?
Mr Ceyssens: I would not take the opportunity at this point to give a legal opinion. I would want to look at it very carefully. I will not give the committee a seat-of-the-pants opinion on that sort of thing.
Mr Sorbara: You will leave that to the politicians.
Mr Fletcher: Oh, yes. Look what we left the year before.
One more thing: If this piece of legislation that we are proposing goes through as is -- but I do not think it will go through as is, I think there will be a few amendments to it -- are you going to apply for the tourist designation?
Ms Peacock: Oh, absolutely.
Mr Miglin: I would support my community applying for the tourism designation.
Mr Morrow: I will be very brief, because I really do not have a question at the time to ask you. I just want to let you know that we are listening. We are trying to draft some guidelines that we feel will be good for everybody in Ontario. I want to thank you for coming. You have done a fine job.
The Acting Chair: Mr Bell, Mr Miglin and Ms Peacock, on behalf of the committee I would like to thank you for taking the time out this afternoon and giving your presentation.
Ms Peacock: Our pleasure.
The Acting Chair: I would like to thank the city of North Bay for hosting the committee today. Personally, I would like to thank the committee for working with me this week; it has been very enjoyable. I will be handing the Chair back to the chair next week.
Seeing no other business in front of the committee, I would like to adjourn until 9 am on Monday, August 12, at the Delta Inn in Ottawa.
The committee adjourned at 1542.