Doug Ford backs Ontario openings on Victoria Day — Happy Victoria Day
Ontario grocery stores, shopping malls and storefront businesses can choose to open on happy victoria day under newly enacted legislation supported by Doug Ford. On Monday, people across Ontario will be able to buy food at a grocery store on Victoria Day, giving retailers a holiday option that had been barred for most of them.
Doug Ford and Family Day
The change also applies to Family Day in February, when Ontario’s newly enacted legislation allows grocery stores, shopping malls and storefront businesses to decide whether they want to open. The government said the move would be convenient for shoppers and would make the rules consistent across the province.
Ford, Ontario’s premier, backed the change that lifts the ban on retail openings on the holiday. The result is not a provincewide order to open; it gives store operators the choice, which leaves the decision with each business and, in some places, each property.
Ontario holiday rules
A confusing patchwork of rules still applies to other holidays in Ontario. Some municipalities have been allowed to pass bylaws exempting stores from the ban, and some retailers in designated tourist areas are allowed to open. That leaves Victoria Day and Family Day as part of a broader set of holiday rules that still vary by place and by type of business.
Employment laws in Ontario give many retail workers the right to refuse to work on holidays. At many workplaces, there will likely be volunteers because they will earn time-and-a-half premium pay in addition to receiving a paid day off. For shoppers, the practical change is simple: food shopping can now happen on a holiday Monday at stores that decide to open.
Holiday shopping in Canada
Across the country, rules differ. The western provinces and the territories generally allow holiday shopping, while bans remain in place in central and eastern provinces. In Quebec, most retailers have been forced to close at 5 p.m. every Saturday and Sunday, though grocery stores and pharmacies are exempted from that weekend closing rule.
The Ontario change does not erase the rest of the province’s holiday system. It narrows one rule on two named holidays and leaves store owners, workers and municipalities to apply the remaining patchwork where it still exists.
