Hon. Mr. Ashton, Hon. Ms. Barrett

Clerk Assistant (Joann McKerlie-Korol): Good morning. Will the Standing Committee on Industrial Relations please come to order. We must first proceed to elect a Chairperson. Are there any nominations?

Mr. Gregory Dewar (Selkirk): Yes, I nominate Mr. Reid.

Clerk Assistant: Mr. Reid has been nominated. Are there any further nominations? Then, Mr. Reid, would you please take the Chair?

Mr. Chairperson: Good morning, everyone. The next item of business is the election of a Vice-Chairperson. Are there any nominations?

Mr. Dewar: Yes, I nominate Ms. Korzeniowski.

Mr. Chairperson: Are there any further nominations? Seeing no further nominations, Ms. Korzeniowski, you are elected Vice-Chairperson.

This morning, the committee has before it Bill 3, The Retail Businesses Holiday Closing Amendment Act. There have been no presenters that have registered to speak this morning. Is there anybody in the audience who would like to make a presentation and has not registered? Seeing none, did the committee wish to indicate how late it is wishing to sit this morning?

An Honourable Member: Do not worry about it.

Mr. Chairperson: Not a concern. Okay. If it is the will of the committee to proceed with detailed clause-by-clause consideration of Bill 3, The Retail Businesses Holiday Closing Amendment Act. Is it agreed? [agreed]

Does the minister responsible for Bill 3 have an opening statement?

Hon. Becky Barrett (Minister of Labour): I just wanted to put on the record again how pleased we are that we have all-party agreement to have brought this legislation to the committee stage very expeditiously. It is, as I stated in the House, the result of an anomaly in the original drafting in the original bill that was discovered as a result of a court case that in effect would have allowed wide-open shopping on Boxing Day which also happens to be a Sunday.

As we stated in the House and the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Filmon) stated in his comments on second reading, that this was not the intention of the legislation, we are simply putting the legislation, this particular case, in line with the intent of the original legislation. So I appreciate the acceptance on the part of all the members in the Legislature to carry it through this far.

Mr. Chairperson: We thank the minister for the comments. Does the critic for the official opposition have an opening statement?

Mr. Ron Schuler (Springfield): Just briefly, Mr. Chairperson.

Thank you for this opportunity. Yes, we are very pleased, No. 1, that the amendment is very clean. It gets right to the point, and we are going to be supporting this amendment.

There are two sides to this one. One, we do not want to deny commerce. We understand that people do have to make a living, but on the other side, for Sunday shopping, from eight until eight is probably not completely necessary. Because of the way things fell this time, Saturday you would be closed, and that would have allowed wide-open shopping on Sunday. We did not feel that that was necessary, that appropriate.

So we are going to be supporting this amendment, and, again, we appreciate the fact that it is very clean, very simple and straight to the point. Thank you.

Mr. Chairperson: We thank the member for his comments. During the consideration of the bill, the preamble and the title are postponed until all other clauses have been considered in their proper order.

Clause 1–pass; Clause 2–pass; Clause 3–pass; preamble–pass; title–pass. Bill be reported.

That concludes the business of this committee.

COMMITTEE ROSE AT: 10:06 a.m.