By John Schudlo
Remembrance Day isn’t business as usual for Ottawa’s business community – at least not for most of it.
For 40 years, the City of Ottawa has had a unique Remembrance Day policy in place which effectively prohibits the city’s retail stores from opening before 12:30 p.m. on Nov. 11.
The national holiday to honour war vets is not a statutory holiday in Ontario. But, Ottawa decided to create the bylaw in order to show respect for many of this country’s veterans who gather downtown every year for the Remembrance Day morning ceremony.
It’s a quite reasonable and commendable idea, really.
But, somehow the city managed to fumble it.
Despite the rationale behind this reverent city gesture – originally designed to allow citizens time to reflect on war without consumerism as a distraction – in recent weeks the Remembrance Day bylaw has actually had the opposite effect it was supposed to.
Lately, the controversial policy has actually drawn attention away from Remembrance Day, to the bylaw itself.
For that, the City only has itself to blame.
When drafting the most recent edition of the bylaw in 2002, instead of making mandatory closures applicable to all stores across the board, the city’s bylaw architects decided to keep the list of exemptions which had been on the books since the 1960s.
The decision to maintain these outdated and unfairly applied privileges came in response to lobbying from certain businesses.
Not surprisingly, the un-level playing field this decision created sparked controversy.
Most recently, the city’s community and protective services committee revisited the issue and proposed amendments which sought to tighten regulations on big-box grocery stores that sell a whole gamut of products other than groceries.
The committee voted against making any immediate changes to the bylaw, but decided to re-visit the issue again before next year’s Nov. 11 ceremonies.
And although the current bylaw does allow for some understandable exceptions – businesses which provide life-sustaining products such as groceries and pharmaceuticals can operate during regular hours on Nov. 11 – it also presents a number of head-scratchers.
For example, tobacco retailers, craft stores, car dealerships and live bait shops are all allowed to stay open all Remembrance Day long under the current bylaw.
Allowing such non-essential establishments to stay open during the National War Memorial ceremonies in the nation’s capital undermine Ottawa’s apparent support for veterans and those currently serving.
“This is the only day of the year where Canadians are asked to remember those that have given their lives in the service of their nation,” said Bob Butt, director of communications for the Royal Canadian Legion, who spoke at the committee meeting in early October.
“It’s important that they can sit back and reflect on the people that have died so that they can have the freedom we enjoy.”
If Ottawa is truly serious about respecting the thousands of Canadians who have risked and continue to risk their lives for freedom, it will surely drop these exceptions as soon as it can – even if that might have to mean inconveniencing smokers, car-buyers and fishermen for a few hours.
And the city shouldn’t stop there.
If any stores are to be closed on the morning of Remembrance Day in Ottawa, then all stores should be closed – no exceptions.
Exceptions only create grey area, and grey area only leads to controversy. Remembrance Day should be about remembrance, not about petty squabbling over lost profits.
People can surely wait a few hours to buy their eggs and milk, or to have a prescription filled.
Additionally, shutting down big-box grocery stores – some of the largest and most packed stores in the city – for the morning cannot help but make awareness of Remembrance Day that much greater.
The city must take its current opportunity to fix the bylaw seriously.
While it may cost some, can store owners and managers really turn to veterans and tell them three hours of lost business once a year is too much of a sacrifice to make?