Sunday Shopping in Manitoba

This has been cross posted to the Western Standard Blog, The Shotgun


The issue of Sunday shopping often comes up around Christmas, when retailers expect a large spike in business for the holiday season. Being the evil capitalists that they are, they would like to "capitalize" on that shopping frenzy and be open to meet the customer demand.

There is a government prohibition on Sunday shopping in Manitoba, the government says when a business can or can't be open, and they provide monopolies to certain businesses by allowing them to stay open for extended hours (like convenience stores) while others cannot.

So, why Sunday? Why not Tuesday? Or Saturday? The answer is... Christianity. In a country that supposedly has separation of church and state, those people not of the Christian faith are forced to live by its tenant of keeping the Sabbath day "holy", by not doing business on that day.

But wait, you CAN do business on that day; if you are a gas station, convenience store, hospital, TV station, cable company, hydro worker, moving company, etc. It seems that those services are acceptable to the moralists, but oh no, want to go buy a TV on Sunday after 6PM? No way you heathen!

So as usual various business organizations beg the government for permission to do business on this holy day, in order to take advantage of the increased business this time of year.

Chamber seeks longer Sunday shopping hours

I would love to see business owners just open up the hours that they want and ignore the government regulations. What do bureaucrats know about running a box store? Why do they get to set the hours? The answer is because if you don't obey their dictates, the men with guns come and shut you down.

If you don't support Sunday shopping, then don't shop on Sunday, and don't force the rest of us to adhere to your standards.