According to the Winnipeg Free Press, the Winnipeg Chamber of Commerce is urging the Manitoba government to remove all Sunday-shopping restrictions and let retailers set their own hours.
“The Chamber has had a long-standing policy that Manitoba retailers should have the same ability to decide when they open based on consumer demand, as retailers in other provinces do,” C of  C president and CEO Dave Angus said in a written statement. “This is simply about giving Manitobans more choice and added convenience.”
It used to be that no store would even think of being open on Sundays. That was the way it was and it seemed to be rooted in Christian tradition and then the Lord’s Day Act.
There are several problems with that approach. One is Sunday is not the Sabbath, Saturday is. The other is that restricting activities on Sunday has always been half-hearted at best. If you worked in a hospital, a mental institution, a jail, a nursing home or as a policeman, Sunday was pretty much another day, all day.
When technology and the market place demanded highly efficient manufacturing, 24-7 became the norm. Many years ago, I am told, the trains stopped on Sundays. Now everything that moves, moves every day.
A tradition of Christian influenced legislation has a been Sunday shopping restrictions. The hypocrisy of that has been that a majority of Christians troop off to the restaurant right after the Sunday church service. The Christian church has tried to legislate Christianity into peoples’ heads rather than teach it into peoples’ hearts.
When Jesus was asked what is the greatest commandment, he said in Matthew 22:36-40: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment.  And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.  All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.’”
   The Ten Commandments say in Exodus 20:2-17 “You shall have no other gods before me.
“You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. 
You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.
You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name.
“Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.
“Honour your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you. “You shall not murder. “You shall not commit adultery. “You shall not steal “You shall not give false testimony against your neighbour. “You shall not covet your neighbour’s house. You shall not covet your neighbour’s wife, or his male or female servant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbour.”
Doesn’t say much about Sunday shopping in there. In fact, the only reference to anything remotely close would be, “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy,” and again that’s Saturday if the truth be known. Strangely enough, if you ask people if they want to work Sunday, most will say, “No, it’s a family day.” A family day sounds pretty close to a “day of rest” or a Sabbath to me.
God gives the above two sets of verses as a guide to living our lives. It takes a lifetime to understand the second set. One can keep coming back to them and in so doing draw closer to God. In the intervening time, the first set provides the short notes version: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment, etc. (see above).”
And what about attending church services on Sunday? Maybe churches should be open seven days a week too. 

As I usually do, I have a history book beside my bed for late night reading. The current one is called The Overlanders. It’s about a group of Canadians who gathered in 1862 at Red River (Winnipeg) and struck out for the Caribou in what is British Columbia today. They were looking to strike it rich in the gold fields. The group included around 150 men, one woman and her three small children. Oh yes, the woman was also several months pregnant.
They travelled by ox cart, on foot, by horse, by log rafts, by canoe, in beef hide boats. They experienced one stretch of 11 days straight of rain.  A few died, mostly by drowning. Oh yes, they had to stop for the baby to be born. 
In what would become Manitoba, the trail was well worn and with even a mediocre guide, they could make their way across. In what would become Saskatchewan, the trail was sketchy. In the future Alberta, it got even rougher. To get into what is now BC, they needed a new guide, one who knew the way. From Tete Jaune, (Yellowhead), they needed another guide as individual guides only knew parts of the trip.
The point is that they went across a wilderness with no government assistance whatsoever. They took, what we would today call, horrendous risks for a reward they could only dream about. It was really a very foolish trip but they struck out across a wilderness in search of a dream, a chance to improve their lot in life.
Contrast that today with the student protesters. Dressed in pretty good clothes, and some students adorned with very expensive tattoos on their arms and who knows where else, taking days and days away from classes or work to protest in Quebec, where it’s reported that the tuition fees are the lowest in North America. The sense of entitlement is atrocious. There is only one place to put the blame. It’s on the parents. Take a glimpse into an elementary school class room. In come the little ones, back packs on their back or dragging in the dirt (whatever) and then look closer. In some cases, mom follows into the classroom to unpack the backpack. We can be pretty sure it was mom who packed it as well.
Contrasting the Overlanders with a few people of today, we can see what’s wrong with our world. Students investing hundreds of dollars in tattoos and designer clothes and losing out on weeks of work or classes, all the while protesting an increase in too low tuition fees, seems like a very foolish move. They obviously don’t have to work so is mommy still packing and unpacking their backpack?
In one scene in the Overlanders’ saga, the group has to portage (carry) their goods and herd the cattle and horses through nine miles of rugged country to bypass a particularly bad set of river rapids. They had to cut trail through the bush for themselves and the herd of cattle and horses to pass through.
It took days to go nine miles.
In contrast today, a student protester only has to roll off the (his mother’s) couch and hit the streets to show how badly treated he is at university.
We can be very thankful that most students today don’t buy into the entitlement and protest movement. There are times for protest but it’s called the ballot box, the political committee room, the campaign team. And how smart are these protesters anyway? They haven’t figured out that if you throw a rock at a cop, you might get retaliation. 
I think we want our next generation leaders to come from the group that went to class, took a summer job, took an extra course in the summer. Universities and university professors are far from perfect but it sure beats the stupidity and destruction of student protests gone astray.
I was at university in the original protest days, the 60s. The protests, the demonstrations, the violence of the 60s accomplished nothing. The whiners of the 60s passed on some of their genetics to today’s protesters, two generations later. 
It boils down to getting off your backside and finding something to do. Hopefully it’s something you like to do but at least do something that will advance your goals. Maybe that’s the problem, the protesters don’t really know what they want but they will fight to the death to get it.
Contrast that again with the Neepawa Area Collegiate H.O.P.E group raising money for a water well in Kenya and for local projects here at home. Every high school in the country is reaching out to their community and the world in some charitable way. It’s the same old story, most people get it. We have to work to make a difference in our lives, in our communities, in the lives of others. Working and protesting all take effort. Most of our students have decided which effort is more productive.

“It looks like change will take a little longer,” said Alberta Wildrose Party leader Danielle Smith on election night. Earlier in the election campaign, some had predicted a Wildrose victory but it was not to be, not yet. Wildrose only elected about one-third of the number of seats of the 41 year reigning PC Party of Alberta.
The PC Party of Alberta campaigned on change, Wildrose on more change and the people opted to go for less change rather than bigger changes.
The rest of Canada will have to follow Alberta’s lead in years to come. Alberta balances their budgets. They should actually be building up huge reserves but at least they balance their budgets. It’s something most provinces, including ours, can only dream about. Manitoba not only doesn’t balance the budget, it has to get 40 per cent of its budget from the federal government. Manitoba has so far to go to catch up to Alberta on that front that it may never come.
Change in Manitoba may come, some day. Hopefully it will come before the province goes belly up. 
There are some lessons we could take from Alberta. The largest part of Manitoba’s budget is taken up with health care. Again, it’s about 40 per cent of the budget. In other words, if the federal government funding was pulled out of Manitoba, we would have no publicly funded health care or other programs would be cut back accordingly.
In Alberta, health care is much different than in Manitoba. Both operate under the auspices, supposedly, of the Canada Health Act. But, in Alberta, you can buy an MRI or a CATSCAN. Not in Manitoba. Why?
It seems it is based on the NDP premise that health care can only be funded by the public coffers. They feel that if they let any private funding into the mix, all the “good” doctors will work in the private sector. They have said those exact words.
The problem is, depending on what you include  in the formula, 40 per cent of health care is privately funded already. Funny how that 40 per cent figure keeps popping up. What do we mean by private health care? Much of the drug costs are privately paid for, so is massage therapy, chiropractic care, alternative medicine, eye care, dental care and many other areas. 
Albertans feel a lot more strongly about things like property rights, individual freedoms and being independent thinkers. That independent thinking took a bit of a hit in Alberta if I understand the campaign reports. Seems like unless you are a Wildrose supporter, you aren’t allowed to have so-called cosncience rights. The two cases cited were that a person practicing medicine couldn’t refuse to perform an abortion and a marriage commissioner couldn’t refuse to perform a wedding ceremony. That seems pretty restrictive. If a doctor says no to any procedure, shouldn’t they have the right to say no? And, should a marriage commissioner feel a marriage isn’t the right thing for a couple, shouldn’t they have the right to refuse? I would have thought so but I guess not. That whole process needs to be talked out a bit more. I thought a person had the right in this country to refuse work based on beliefs but maybe  we don’t.
The underlying problem in government today is that too few people want to fund their own way in life. We have become overly dependent on government. Recently, there was a conservative politician speaking to a group in a very conservative town. When the time came for questions, there were only three. All three related to how the town could somehow get more govrnment funding. That’s pretty sad when you think about it.
Yes, change will take a little longer than we thought.

It seems that questioning actions is a lost art. The news this past few months yields a number of examples.
Let’s just set the stage for a moment.
The federal government is running deficits that would make former governments blush. The provincial government in Manitoba has no idea where their deficit is going to climb to and their upcoming budget will be interesting to say the least.
Municipal governments are all struggling to balance their budgets for varying reasons. It may be an increased demand for services, it may be long delays in repairing infrastructure, it may be trying to respond to an ever increasing landslide of downloading from senior governments.
Within the above framed scenario, tough questions need to be asked.
The federal government has made a small dent by attempting to reduce the federal civil service. They say they will eliminate 19,000 jobs. Sounds good to a conservative thinker but it has also been reported that this government increased the civil service by 35,000 jobs. If that’s true then we really have a problem because Canadian lives have not been improved by that addition of jobs.
No one wants to return to the 1950s or 60s but the tough questions have to be asked. Why do we have so many civil servants?
At the provincial level, the government hasn’t got a hope of balancing the budget but they have promised a million bucks to the Spirit Sands Casino. Give me break. Another casino; another casino out in the country. You mean, like the one at South Beach that has to virtually give away its rooms so it can try to fill its restaurants and gambling rooms. When will someone ask why aboriginal groups are so infatuated with casinos? When will someone ask why the government owns casinos or runs casinos. When will someone ask why the province has now launched its own on-line gambling gig?
When we need roads, housing and infrastructure, why are we employing people in casinos? It’s nuts. Hasn’t the government figured out that jobs, real jobs can involve real work, such as building roads?
On the municipal side there’s a big move afoot to increase sales tax by one per cent so it can go to infrastructure. There’s also a move afoot to slap on a gas tax, at least in Winnipeg to pay for similar stuff. Run, don’t walk, run away from that deal. Never let the government, at any level, get their hands on more of your money. Tax increases are usually a cop out.
Government budgets should grow from a real growth in the economy, not from increases in taxes rates.
The municipal example I often cite is this. First, the growth in a budget should be from the growth in new assessment. Then budget growth can come from the growth in re-assesmnet or the regular assessment changes that come by way of re-assessment. The rationale is that if properties go up in value, then the amount of taxes can go up. That has some pitfalls as those on a fixed income may not be able to afford more taxes. Just because a property goes up in value doesn’t mean that a person has more money. The last place a budget should grow from is an increase in the tax rate.
There’s a good perspective builder in determining tax increases. Take a look at the last 10 budgets be they federal, provincial or municipal. The figures aren’t that hard to obtain. Every one has gone up by rather large percentages. Then the question needs to be asked, where has the extra money been spent?
That’s where the tough questions come in. Too often, politicians simply sit back and say, “Oh well everything goes up, there’s not much we can do about it”.
Wrong!
There’s always a different way of doing things. Some ideas will work, some won’t, but all ideas need to be looked at. That’s a politician’s job, to look at new ideas.
Several questions have been posed. More need to be posed. For example, most towns pave but some use concrete. Which is cheaper over the long haul? I don’t know but we need to ask.
Why does the government build schools and hospitals? Could private businesses do it better? Could they be on long term leases? What’s the difference? One difference is that if a company designs, builds, owns and pays the upkeep on a building they would likely do it better, faster and cheaper than a government could ever do it. And if they don’t, they might go broke. That’s something a government never has to face. Going broke is the big fear factor for businesses that keeps them a lot more frugal than government ever will be.
Hard questions indeed need to be asked.