When the City of Toronto Act* came into force in 2006, the Province relinquished the power to restrict store operating hours in the city on statutory holidays. Newly empowered in this area, city council at the time deferred to the status quo, allowing only a handful of disctricts to open on the holidays, namely the Eaton Centre, the Yonge Street strip, Harbourfront, and the Distillery District. Two additional malls, Vaughan Mills and Sherway Gardens, were later granted exemption.

However, it appears that the restrictions have not been enforced against business operators outside the exempted districts. Earlier this week, the Toronto Star reported that non-enforcement of the rules has resulted in confusion among store owners.^ The malls following the rules have lost business to exempted operators as well as to those who simply have not complied.

The current rules require mandatory closure on statutory holidays including New Year’s Day, Family Day, Good Friday, Easter Sunday, Victoria Day, Canada Day, Labour Day, Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Day. Three out of the dates, Good Friday, Easter Sunday, and Christmas Day, have Christian roots, while the rest of the holidays are civil in nature.

In the 1980s, mandatory closure on Christian holidays was ruled unconstitutional.** After the legislature removed the religious references in the mandatory closure rules, the court found civil purposes and essentially approved these rules.

Given Toronto’s diversity in population, “one size fits all” rules have their shortcomings. The popular opinion seems to be that the operating hours of stores should be decided by the individual owners, not the government.

It remains to be seen whether the debate will gather enough momentum to result in real changes.

*S.O. 2006, c. 11, Sch. A

^Paul Monoley, “Let Us Open on Holidays” Toronto Star (April 13, 2010)

**See e.g. R. v. Big M Drug Mart Ltd., [1985] 1 S.C.R. 295