In this editorial video, the speaker chronicles the rise and fall of the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC), once Canada’s oldest retailer. The narrative begins with HBC’s colonial origins, trading blankets and bullets for Indigenous beaver pelts, highlighting the exploitative foundations of the enterprise. The speaker then shifts to the 2008 acquisition by American executive Richard Baker, portraying him not as a retail visionary but as a real‑estate‑focused investor who prioritized property assets over store operations, merchandising, and employee development. This strategic mis‑alignment left HBC stores outdated and poorly managed just as Canadian consumers moved online during the pandemic. The company’s financials spiraled, accruing nearly $1 billion in debt, unpaid supplier bills, and looming payroll failures, culminating in the liquidation of the iconic retailer and the loss of 9,300 jobs. The speaker argues that the collapse was not caused by competition from Amazon, fast‑fashion, or changing demographics, but by indifference and foreign ownership that treated a national institution like a flip‑house asset. The video concludes with a warning against selling Canadian cultural landmarks to foreign investors, framing the story as a continuation of colonial exploitation now dressed in corporate real‑estate deals.
Chapters
So the liquidation of Canada's greatest store is now underway. The Hudson's Bay Company has been peddling goods since— well, before Canada was a country. And it has a complicated history. In its early days, it sold fur. Fur for hats, for fashion, luxuries for distant lands. And to get that fur, they needed Indigenous trappers. So the Bay set up shops trading blankets and bullets for beaver pelts. Sometimes that exchange was cooperative. More often than not, it was exploitation dressed up as partnership. Colonialism isn't tidy like carefully folded blankets stacked on a shelf. It's messy and it's brutal and it's soaked with history that refuses to wash clean. But now it's over. Phone lines disconnected. Rewards points suspended. 9,300 jobs evaporated. What happened? How do you go from being the backbone of Canadian retail to "Would you like to buy the mannequins?" It started with Richard Baker, an American business executive who bought the company 17 years ago. What kind of executive, you ask? Retail visionary, perhaps? Merchandising Marketing guru? Supply chain mastermind? Nah. Just another run-of-the-mill real estate vulture. Through his eyes, stores sit on land worth money, not products worth money. So the things retail considers important— sales strategy, merchandising, store design, employee training, all that— took a backseat to property portfolios and lease agreements. It's like buying the Oilers and then deciding the real value is in the Zamboni garage. And because of that, walking into some HBC locations the last few years was like a game of retail roulette. Would the escalator work today? Would you find an employee to help, or wander the aisles searching for socks and the will to keep living? Stores felt like a time capsule from 1997. Meanwhile, Canadians were changing. The pandemic turned boomers into Amazon Prime addicts. We stopped browsing and started clicking. But The Bay just stuck to the old playbook. Look, we have decorations in the ceiling now. The Clinique counter is open late. While the world shifted, The Bay bet it could ride out the storm by doing absolutely nothing. This of course sent the financials into freefall with debts nearing $1 billion. Unpaid bills to clothing suppliers and mall landlords. The company was running on fumes. They were days away from missing payroll. You know, the worst part is None of this had to happen. Hudson's Bay wasn't killed by Amazon. It wasn't killed by millennials or Shein or TikTok. It was killed by indifference. By an owner that treated a national institution the same as condos to flip in Florida. The Bay's circling the drain not because Canadians stopped caring, but because the Americans in charge never cared to begin with. So what do we do now? Sit around and watch Tim Hortons become a crypto bank? Let Canadian Tire sell naming rights to the provinces? Enough! If we don't stop selling our national institutions to vultures with a trust fund, there won't be any left to pass on. Hudson's Bay started with blankets and bullets and a legacy built on taking what wasn't theirs. Started with taking land, it ends with selling it. Colonialism hasn't vanished, it's just better dressed. You want to make a quick buck? Go flip a condo, but leave our damn country alone.
