dewline | The Bay: Going Away

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The Bay was a retail fixture of my life. I didn't expect to outlive the company.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/hudsons-bay-8300-employees-june-1-1.7544639

Current Mood: contemplative

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I'm sad about the demise of department stores in general. The Bay, Simpsons-Sears, Eaton's, Murphy Gamble, Ogilvy's. I don't think we have any big department stores like that in town any more. Yes, we can decry all our colonialist history and all the oppression of the fur trade and so on but honestly, The Bay hasn't really been Canadian for ages, anyway (and before anyone attacks me, I'm not saying that excuses the many shames of our history). It wasn't even much of a presence in Ottawa until the early 1970s - the Bay stores were all Freiman's stores until then. We did have a Morgan's store on Sparks Street, which was owned by HBC, but it was quite small.

What definitely concerns me is the livelihood of the Bay's former employees, as well as the way important historical artefacts are to be auctioned off to the highest bidder.