A big bag of bad timing

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Lynne Sladky / The Associated Press Archives (CP)

It certainly seemed highly unlikely the NDP government would ever revisit the issue of Sunday shopping.

Up until the April budget, the NDP had defiantly opposed any move to extend Sunday retail hours beyond the current 12 p.m. to 6 p.m. limit, largely in response to concerns from organized labour. Although it's not clear that all unionized retail workers fear Sunday shopping, their unions do. It was a position that seemed permanently cemented in the NDP playbook.

In last fall's election, the Liberals tried to make Sunday shopping an issue but Premier Greg Selinger would have none of it, rejecting any extension of hours outright. The NDP majority was followed up with a throne speech that made no mention of Sunday shopping.

Imagine the surprise in labour circles when the NDP announced in the April budget it was expanding Sunday retail hours. That pledge has now become a plan to allow retailers to open at 9 a.m. on Sundays. Why the change now after having only recently reaffirmed a pledge to the contrary?

Labour Minister Jennifer Howard said the province is responding to increases in duty-free allowances introduced in the March federal budget. "I felt that what we had was reasonable," Howard said in an interview. "But what turned it for me was the increase in limits for what people were allowed to bring back here duty-free. I felt we needed to level the playing field."

That assertion is no doubt cold comfort to labour, who believed they had this issue off the table. The remaining question is, did the NDP have good reasons for changing course on this issue?

Howard is correct to be concerned about cross-border shopping. Ottawa increased the limits in part to reduce the amount of time border officers spend documenting duty-free running shoes and allow them to concentrate on more serious interdiction. The announcement was also a fairly successful tool to divert attention away from more severe budget measures. The decision to fire 12,000 federal civil servants seems a little more palatable when you realize you can bring in twice the duty-free stuff from Banana Republic and Nordstrom Rack on your next trip to Minneapolis.

However, Howard is right when she connects the dots between those limits and the health of Manitoba's retail industry. The Bank of Montreal recently estimated Canadian retailers lose $40 billion annually to cross-border shopping.

When the provinces are battling budget deficits, the loss of retail sales and the sales tax that is generated by them, that's alarming.

But does that justify a complete about-face? You might argue it is desirable to have a government that is willing to change course when it sees a previous position is no longer tenable. That said, there is nothing cited as a motivation for this decision that could not have been found months or even years earlier.

Cross-border shopping has been a concern for a long time. Duty-free limits were increased in 2007 and in the years that followed, the rise in value of the Canadian dollar made cross-border shopping even more attractive. In this context, the NDP is being too cute by half by blaming this year's federal budget for this decision. If it's a good idea now, it was likely just as good an idea last fall when voters awarded the NDP with a fourth majority.

The NDP did not have to respond to Liberal taunts on Sunday shopping because no one was paying much attention to them. And the Tories, perhaps fearing a holy war from labour, also did not offer a firm position in favour of extending Sunday shopping hours. It was an issue without an effective champion to push the NDP, which clearly could see only peril in unleashing a new Sunday shopping policy in the middle of a campaign.

This is a prime example of how core constituencies get trampled in "big-tent" politics.

It's also possible cross-border shopping was not the only reason the province moved now. Although Howard denied talking directly with Ikea, she admitted many retailers think the arrival of the ubiquitous Swedish furniture and housewares behemoth -- which opens an outlet in Winnipeg this fall -- will draw as many shoppers as those who head south. It must have been a sobering realization that this would have been the only Ikea outlet in North America prevented from opening until noon on Sunday, getaway day for destination shoppers. Again, the NDP has long known about Ikea and the cross-border shopping drain. The NDP was either not paying attention or, worse, keeping its cards unfairly close to its vest last fall to ensure it wasn't rocking any labour boats.

The NDP government was correct to respond to the cross-border shopping threat.

But if that really is the issue at the heart of this decision, it should have been made earlier. At the very least, it should have been part of the government's platform in last fall's election.

As it stands, the NDP is late. Late in addressing the issue, and late in warning labour what was coming.

dan.lett@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition May 28, 2012 A5