Shop ‘til You Drop: Reflections on the Decision of the PEI Legislature

(by Mark Parent)
Also on ChronicleHerald.ca


Recently, the PEI Legislature voted to support Sunday shopping twelve months a year. The decision was close and was decided by the Speaker who, parting with tradition, broke the tie by voting for change rather than the status quo.
While I find such a decision distressing it is not unexpected due to two factors.
The first is the loss of concern for the wider community. In this case, the community in question is the community of retail workers who previously had enjoyed having Sunday off to be with their families. Retail workers are among the most vulnerable of all workers in our society. They have little power, low salaries and no union voice. One wonders what the result would have been if the vote had concerned having teachers work on Sunday.
The second, and more important fact, is that we have become a society which is centered on consumerism. Instead of homo erectus we are now homo consumis. We know the price of everything. We define ourselves by what we own and work ourselves into a frenzy of excitement in anticipation of our next purchase. So persuasive is our addition to buying and shopping that we now have companies that make their business decluttering our lives of things so that we may have space for more things!
Clearly, I find such behavior distasteful. I believe that the spirit decays when the chief goal of our life and our society is focused on shopping. My personal quibbles aside, though, there is a more persuasive reason why we must move away from an emphasis on consumption. Put simply our society, our world, cannot support such behavior. The Global Footprint organization has computed that if everyone on this planet lived at the lifestyle we North Americans do it would take several worlds to provide the materials to support such a lifestyle.
Little wonder that the Environment Minister in the country of India, Jairam Ramesh has warned his fellow citizens not to embrace the consumer model of Europe and North America. Indeed, he has even gone so far as to call people who drive large SUV vehicles in urban areas "criminal."
But in spite of such warnings and concerns we seem to be stuck in our destructive behavior. Witness President Obama’s solution to the recent financial crisis when he encouraged Americans to go out and shop. Like lemmings we rush headlong to the cliff edge or, better put, like shoppers searching for the latest bargain we crash the doors of the mall even if we have to trample over each other to get there.
PEI politicians could have and should have taken a small stance against consumerism. After all, our consumer behavior is in large part responsible for our addiction to fossil fuels which is the main cause of climate change and climate change threatens PEI’s very existence as a province with rising sea levels. Sadly, however, they did not.