TORONTO —
Home decor chain Pier 1, Carlton Cards and Forever 21 are simply the latest in a growing list of retailers closing their doors in Canada or filing for bankruptcy.
And several analysts told CTVNews.ca the underlying issue is that these chains haven’t kept up with changes in shoppers who have shifted online shopping.
Doug Stephens, founder of consulting agency Retail Prophet, said people are looking for an experience when they go to any type of business – bricks and mortar ones or otherwise.
“You have to be able to promise consumers one of two things: you’re either going to promise them time well-saved or time well-spent,” he told CTVNews.ca in a phone interview.
Stephens argued shoppers can save time in online stores such as Amazon, while more innovative successful stores, such as Nordstrom, go the other route and give shoppers an experience. But stores that are closing are offering neither of those things, he said.
“Often times what we find is that these are not brands that have necessarily carved a distinct … piece of the market,” he said. “They’ve been sort of left to languish in the middle of the market.”
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Here is a list of some of the major chains in Canada closing all their doors, shuttering their locations or that have been hit by bankruptcy in the past two years:
PIER 1
On Feb. 17, the home decor chain Pier 1 announced it was closing all of its stores in Canada, as the retailer began bankruptcy proceedings in the United States.
In January, the company announced it was closing up to 450 of its 942 stores in Canada and the U.S. At the time, they said this was “in order to better align its business with the current operating environment.”
PAPYRUS AND CARLTON CARDS
On Jan. 22, the owner of greeting card retailers including Carlton Cards and Papyrus announced it was closing all of its stores in North America, including 76 Canadian locations. The Carlton Cards and Papyrus online stores will remain open.
BENCH
On the same day, the owner of apparel store Bench’s Canadian operations confirmed to BNN that all 24 locations would be closed. The company was founded in the U.K. in 1989 and it has changed hands multiple times before it was acquired by U.S. restructurer Gordon Brothers.
U.S.-based audio equipment retailer Bose will reportedly shutter all of its remaining Canadian stores, as part of the chain’s closure of 119 locations around the world, according to online publication Retail Insider reported in early January. This follows a handful of Bose’s other standalone store closures in Canada.
THINGS ENGRAVED
On January 14, the head of Kitchener, Ont.-based retailer Things Engraved announced plans to shut all of its 73 stores after terminating its entire workforce. CEO Shawn Black told CTVNews.ca the company had been unprofitable for several years and couldn’t compete with online retailers such as Amazon.
LINKS OF LONDON
In January 2020, Retail Insider also reported the once-popular jeweller Links Of London was planning on closing all five of its Canadian stores in the coming year. This followed earlier news in October that the chain was liquidating its American and U.K. locations.
BENTLEY
The Montreal-based luggage and bag retailer is reportedly shuttering 88 stores in Canada and cut 422 jobs, several outlets reported in December 2019. The company currently has 251 stores in Canada and the closures of the chain’s less-profitable luggage stores were first announced in November 2019, BNNBloomberg reported.
LOWE’S
In November 2019, the home renovations retailer Lowe’s announced it would close 34 “underperforming” stores across six provinces, CTV News reported. The closures add to the shuttering of 31 Canadian Lowe’s and Rona locations, including 27 stores and four other facilities, announced in November 2018.
BOUCLAIR
And also in November, the Montreal-based home décor retailer Bouclair filed notices to make a proposal under the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act. Across Canada, 29 of the chain’s 60 locations will close.
FOREVER 21
At the end of last summer, Los Angeles-based clothing retailer Forever 21 announced it would be closing all 44 of the Canadian locations and leaving the country altogether, CTV News reported.
ZELLERS
Once a giant in the Canadian retail landscape, Zellers said its last two remaining locations in Toronto and Ottawa are slated to close early in 2020, CTV News Ottawa reported in September. At its peak, it had 350 stores across Canada with half a billion dollars in sales annually.
MOTHERHOOD MATERNITY
In the fall of 2019, maternity retailer Destination Maternity, which owns Motherhood Maternity, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the U.S. And after it was acquired by Marquee Brands LLC., it was announced that all stores across North America, including 29 Motherhood Maternity stores in Canada would close.
GAP
Back in March, the San Francisco-based fashion retailer announced it was shuttering almost half of its brand locations across the world over the next two years. This follows waves of other store closures in the past three years.
Gap didn’t disclose how many of its 230 upcoming North America store closures would be in Canada, The Canadian Press reported.
Children’s retailer Gymboree filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy for the second time in January 2019, with the company announcing that it would be shuttering all its locations in Canada and the U,S.
With files from CTVNews.ca writers Ryan Flanagan, Graham Slaughter, Solarina Ho and The Canadian Press
CALGARY – MEG Energy says it earned $167 million in its third quarter, down from $249 million during the same quarter last year.
The company says revenues for the quarter were $1.27 billion, down from $1.44 billion during the third quarter of 2023.
Diluted earnings per share were 62 cents, down from 86 cents a year earlier.
MEG Energy says it successfully completed its debt reduction strategy, reducing its net debt to US$478 million by the end of September, down from US$634 million during the prior quarter.
President and CEO Darlene Gates said moving forward all the company’s free cash flow will be returned to shareholders through expanded share buybacks and a quarterly base dividend.
The company says its capital expenditures for the quarter increased to $141 million from $83 million a year earlier, mainly due to higher planned field development activity, as well as moderate capacity growth projects.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 5, 2024.
Premier David Eby is proposing an all-party committee investigate mistakes made during the British Columbia election vote tally, including an uncounted ballot box and unreported votes in three-quarters of the province’s 93 ridings.
The proposal comes after B.C.’s chief electoral officer blamed extreme weather, long working hours and a new voting system for human errors behind the mistakes in last month’s count, though none were large enough to change the initial results.
Anton Boegman says the agency is already investigating the mistakes to “identify key lessons learned” to improve training, change processes or make recommendations for legislative change.
He says the uncounted ballot box containing about 861 votes in Prince George-Mackenzie was never lost, and was always securely in the custody of election officials.
Boegman says a failure in five districts to properly report a small number of out-of-district votes, meanwhile, rippled through to the counts in 69 ridings.
Eby says the NDP will propose that a committee examine the systems used and steps taken by Elections BC, then recommend improvements in future elections.
“I look forward to working with all MLAs to uphold our shared commitment to free and fair elections, the foundation of our democracy,” he said in a statement Tuesday, after a news conference by Boegman.
Boegman said if an independent review does occur, “Elections BC will, of course, fully participate in that process.”
He said the mistakes came to light when a “discrepancy” of 14 votes was noticed in the riding of Surrey-Guildford, spurring a review that increased the number of unreported votes there to 28.
Surrey-Guildford was the closest race in the election and the NDP victory there gave Eby a one-seat majority. The discovery reduced the NDP’s victory margin from 27 to 21, pending the outcome of a judicial review that was previously triggered because the race was so close.
The mistakes in Surrey-Guildford resulted in a provincewide audit that found the other errors, Boegman said.
“These mistakes were a result of human error. Our elections rely on the work of over 17,000 election officials from communities across the province,” he said.
“Election officials were working 14 hours or more on voting days and on final voting day in particular faced extremely challenging weather conditions in many parts of the province.
“These conditions likely contributed to these mistakes,” he said.
B.C.’s “vote anywhere” model also played a role in the errors, said Boegman, who said he had issued an order to correct the results in the affected ridings.
Boegman said the uncounted Prince George-Mackenzie ballot box was used on the first day of advance voting. Election officials later discovered a vote hadn’t been tabulated, so they retabulated the ballots but mistakenly omitted the box of first-day votes, only including ballots from the second day.
Boegman said the issues discovered in the provincewide audit will be “fully documented” in his report to the legislature on the provincial election, the first held using electronic tabulators.
He said he was confident election officials found all “anomalies.”
B.C. Conservative Party Leader John Rustad had said on Monday that the errors were “an unprecedented failure by the very institution responsible for ensuring the fairness and accuracy of our elections.”
Rustad said he was not disputing the outcomes as judicial recounts continue, but said “it’s clear that mistakes like these severely undermine public trust in our electoral process.”
Rustad called for an “independent review” to make sure the errors never happen again.
Boegman, who said the election required fewer than half the number of workers under the old paper-based system, said results for the election would be returned in 90 of the province’s 93 ridings on Tuesday.
Full judicial recounts will be held in Surrey-Guildford and Kelowna-Centre, while a partial recount of the uncounted box will take place in Prince George-Mackenzie.
Boegman said out-of-district voting had been a part of B.C.’s elections for many decades, and explained how thousands of voters utilized the province’s vote-by-phone system, calling it a “very secure model” for people with disabilities.
“I think this is a unique and very important part of our elections, providing accessibility to British Columbians,” he said. “They have unparalleled access to the ballot box that is not found in other jurisdictions in Canada.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 5, 2024.
WINNIPEG – A public memorial honouring former judge, senator and chair of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission into residential schools, Murray Sinclair, is set to take place in Winnipeg on Sunday.
The event, which is being organized by the federal and Manitoba governments, will be at Canada Life Centre, home of the NHL’s Winnipeg Jets.
Sinclair died Monday in a Winnipeg hospital at the age of 73.
A teepee and a sacred fire were set up outside the Manitoba legislature for people to pay their respects hours after news of his death became public. The province has said it will remain open to the public until Sinclair’s funeral.
Sinclair’s family continues to invite people to visit the sacred fire and offer tobacco.
The family thanked the public for sharing words of love and support as tributes poured in this week.
“The significance of Mazina Giizhik’s (the One Who Speaks of Pictures in the Sky) impact and reach cannot be overstated,” the family said in a statement on Tuesday, noting Sinclair’s traditional Anishinaabe name.
“He touched many lives and impacted thousands of people.”
They encourage the public to celebrate his life and journey home.
A visitation for extended family, friends and community is also scheduled to take place Wednesday morning.
Leaders from across Canada shared their memories of Sinclair.
Premier Wab Kinew called Sinclair one of the key architects of the era of reconciliation.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Sinclair was a teacher, a guide and a friend who helped the country navigate tough realities.
Sinclair was the first Indigenous judge in Manitoba — the second in Canada.
He served as co-chair of the Aboriginal Justice Inquiry of Manitoba to examine whether the justice system was failing Indigenous people after the murder of Helen Betty Osborne and the police shooting death of First Nations leader J.J. Harper.
In leading the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, he participated in hundreds of hearings across Canada and heard testimony from thousands of residential school survivors.
The commissioners released their widely influential final report in 2015, which described what took place at the institutions as cultural genocide and included 94 calls to action.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 5, 2024.
