Shopping on Sundays was illegal until this Calgary drug mart fought a $40

It was a seemingly minor moment that led to a foundational legal decision. 

It was a Sunday in 1982, and Big M Drug Mart in southeast Calgary was open for business. Housed in an old Safeway store, the 20,000-square-foot establishment was as much a general store as it was a drugstore, selling everything from prescriptions to party decorations. 

One wouldn’t blink an eye today should such a store open its doors on a Sunday. But things were different in 1982.

On that day, police officers with the City of Calgary were in the shop, on duty, keeping watchful eye. They watched as several transactions were completed: the sale of groceries. Plastic cups. A bicycle lock. They moved into action.

Soon, Big M would be charged with violating the Lord’s Day Act, a federal law that traced back to 1906. Under it, Sundays were legally considered a day of rest. It was part of a legislative tradition rooted in Christian morality, going all the way back to the Romans and medieval kings.

Scofflaws would only face a small fine, but Nancy Lockhart was fed up.

Lockhart was co-owner of Big M Drug Mart, alongside her partner Michael Lasrado. Originally from Montreal, they had opened Big M with very little money, buying used fixtures and cash registers at auction.

Like other retailers at the time, they soon recognized that, despite the law, Sunday was good for business. 

“Families came in together after church. You know, the Lord’s Day Act gives you the idea that it shouldn’t be open, because everybody’s at church, praying all day,” Lockhart recalled. 

“In fact, it didn’t stop people from going to church. But it was a family activity.”

Big M Drug Mart wasn’t the only store in Alberta flouting Sunday shopping rules at the time. Most just paid the small fines of around $15 as a cost of doing business. 

But soon, the practice began to fall under the microscope of the government and the press. The fines started getting bigger.

“And at that time, we decided that rather than just continuing to pay the fines, that we would challenge the law,” Lockhart said.

The Charter challenge

At that time, Tim Boyle was a young lawyer who had only been practicing law for about three years at a small firm when the Big M Drug Mart case came across his…