AUDIO – DESCRIPTION:
On February 25, 1987, Freedom Party’s Marc Emery (Action Director) and Robert Metz (President) made separate submissions to the London meeting of a Select Committee on Sunday Shopping. Emery’s submission in part blamed organized religions for the Retail Business Holidays Act‘s ban on opening a retain store on Sundays. That statement got him national attention, including this interview on CBC radio.
VIDEO – DESCRIPTION:
On February 25, 1987, Global TV did a news story on Marc Emery’s and Robert Metz’s submissions to the London meeting of the Select Committee on Sunday Shopping. Business owners testified that they wanted Ontario’s ban on Sunday shopping to remain in place. Only Emery and Metz were heard to call for a repeal of the ban. Continue reading »
VIDEO – DESCRIPTION:
On February 25, 1987, a Select Committee looking at the Retail Business Holidays Act (after the Act survived a Charter challenge in the Supreme Court of Canada, in December of 1986) held a hearing in London, Ontario. Freedom Party of Ontario Action Director testified to the committee in his capacity as a book store owner (City Lights Book Store), and Freedom Party president Robert Metz appeared on behalf of Freedom Party of Ontario. The Chair of the committee was happy finally to hear from people who were opposed to the ban: he was sure that the general public opposed the ban too. Continue reading »
Contents:
FP Action Campaign Take Off in Ontario, Aurora, Newmarket, Hamilton, Burlington, Metro Toronto, Mississauga, London, St. Thomas, Keswick, Sarnia; (Openers) Metz discusses plans for 1987, Censorship Alert campaign; An Experience to Remember, Michael Emerling (Essence of Political Persuasion), Photos from FP Workshop – October 1986; BIA Campaign Mushrooms Into Major Effort, Merchants meet ant-BIA Group – excerpt (Hamilton Spectator); FREEDOM Party goes to the marketplace to support Sunday Choice, Marc Emery on CFPL-TV, Sunday Shopping, Retail Business Holidays Act; Scores of Charges Laid Over Sunday Shopping (Globe & Mail), Group Stages Blitz for Sunday Choice (Toronto Sun), Grocery Stores Continue to Defy Closing Law (St. Thomas Times Journal); Freedom Party Newspaper Campaign; Election 1987, election call expected in Spring; List of FP Publications.. Continue reading »
This is Robert Metz’s “Never On A Sunday?” issue paper. Continue reading »
AUDIO – DESCRIPTION:
On August 13, 1986, Ontario Progressive Conservative Party leader Larry Grossman was the guest of the Wayne McLean show. Grossman fielded calls from listeners, including Freedom Party president Robert Metz who challenged Grossman to clarify his position on the injustice or justice of a law that punishes a person for opening his or her retail store on a Sunday. Grossman was in favour of the law as a matter of tradition, but also said he was in favour of making exceptions based upon race (e.g., Chinatown, which laid within his own electoral district), business type (Grossman said he would exempt bookstores, and arguably he did so because the constitutionality of Ontario’s Retail Business Holiday’s Act was being challenged by a Toronto bookseller Edward’s Books and by Toronto furrier Paul Magder, whose fur business was located in Chinatown, in Toronto), and other completely arbitrary things. When Grossman says he doesn’t know how to solve the apparent injustice of allowing store owners in Chinatown to open their stores while other store owners are charged and lose their business to competitors, Metz argues that market forces, not government force, provide the solution.
Published by later-to-be Freedom Party Action Director Marc Emery, nine issues of the Downtown London Metrobulletin were published from 1981 to 1982. Emery launched the Downtown London Metrobulletin after leaving the broadsheet newspaper he founded in 1980, the London Tribune. Emery and fellow investor/writer Robert Metz left the London Tribune over its editorial policy: Emery’s vision of a hard-hitting newspaper was trumped by other investors, who did not want their friends and business connections to be criticized in the paper. The Downtown London Metrobulletin was succeeded by the London Metrobulletin in 1983, which Emery launched after buying the printing assets of the London Tribune (which had failed following the departure of Emery and Metz).
Contents of Issue #7:
Love us or hate us, we’re one year old; Why Park’n Ride will be a loss to your business; What do we replace the B.I.A. with?; Combrade Bob Martin Fired; Delay in canvassing merchants denounced; A referendum on the B.I.A. a clear possibility for September; Video arcade curfew injust; Leslie Rochford: Was he really “starving for profit”?; Sunday shopping: Sun readers say Yes; MP Burghardt wrong on Canadian gas prices; Government energy policies fuel inflation; Guess what happened?: $2 gas!!; Sign law killed by public response; Planters on Dundas St. to go; Politics and lunch served at Nitty’s; Foreign aid generosity costing Canadians; Wellington Square adopts Eaton’s Centre styel atrium design; Wellington Square: $3-million facelift due in June; New York tavern harassed by police; Some things we passed a few days back…; No terminal transfer system for buses after all; Humour: Coming this summer to a business near year; Dangers of democracy. Continue reading »
Published by later-to-be Freedom Party Action Director Marc Emery, nine issues of the Downtown London Metrobulletin were published from 1981 to 1982. Emery launched the Downtown London Metrobulletin after leaving the broadsheet newspaper he founded in 1980, the London Tribune. Emery and fellow investor/writer Robert Metz left the London Tribune over its editorial policy: Emery’s vision of a hard-hitting newspaper was trumped by other investors, who did not want their friends and business connections to be criticized in the paper. The Downtown London Metrobulletin was succeeded by the London Metrobulletin in 1983, which Emery launched after buying the printing assets of the London Tribune (which had failed following the departure of Emery and Metz).
Contents of Issue #6:
Portable sign by-law (we turn on the warm jets); Jack Burghardt’s latest constituency report; Sunday – Open or closed? Major story; Somebody squealed on Hi-Fi Express; Downtown Notes (Ramada Inn downtown?; LTC deficits pile up; MetroBulletin is the first!; Dine N’ Dash, Coupon Capers; MetroBulletin gets award; Buses stop for nothing – Our response; Whittington’s vs. Bank of Montreal); B.I.A. (more money gone); The Fed vs. the Little Man: Little man wins round one; Salaries of MPs; A brief analysis of business advocacy groups. Continue reading »