What happened to The Hudson's Bay Company?

The Hudson's Bay Company may be in its final days, as the department store looks to possibly close all its stores by the end of the week.

But the Bay is much more than a shopping destination. It's become a symbol of Canada, despite Americans owning the chain since 2006 and the role it played in the colonization of Indigenous people. 

Today on Commotion, host Elamin Abdelmahmoud unpacks the cultural, economic and historic implications of the Bay's demise with fashion and culture journalist Mosha Lundström Halbert, MH3 Collective and Black Talent Initiative founder Mark Harrison, and entertainment reporter Teri Hart. 

We've included some highlights below, edited for length and clarity. For the full discussion, listen and follow Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud on your favourite podcast player.

Elamin: We're talking about 9,000 jobs on the line here. This is a lot of people who put their livelihood into a company like the Bay — that's a gigantic number of jobs. Mosha, your mom, Linda Lundström, founded an outerwear company in the 1970s. It made its clothing in Canada, sold them at stores like the Bay. I'm curious when you think about the potential loss of a space like the Bay, what does that mean for Canadian fashion designers?

Mosha: I know people who have lost their jobs at the Bay currently. I know fashion designers and vendors that are affected by this. And having grown up in the industry — I'm actually third generation in fashion because of my dad's side, they were furriers on Spadina — I've seen the effects that losing a big account, like the Bay was for many vendors, can have. When my mother had struggles with her business, which was due to the recession triggered by Sept. 11, and a bunch of stores canceled their orders with her, that put my family's livelihood in harm's way. Like, we're literally talking about us being able to keep our house. And I know for a lot of brands that I've spoken with, this is how serious it is for them. They're completely put in harm's way because the Bay owes them a ton of money. Also, Saks owes their vendors a ton of money as well. And then you have all these people that have lost their jobs that are so hardworking. I mean, I think our favourite part of going to a department store is actually having a conversation in real life with a real person. I think it's really sad on a lot of fronts. 

But I also think that a lot of very irresponsible financial and real estate maneuvers by the billionaire owner of Hudson's Bay, Richard Baker, who's quite cavalier about the whole thing, is going to be just fine himself. It's what got us here. 

Elamin: Mark, I think that there's something about a company that tries to weave itself into a national identity, where something hits different when it gets sold to an American buyer, which is what happened in 2006. Yet it's still felt — and I think continues to feel for a lot of people — as quintessentially Canadian. How do you think it's managed to do that?

Mark: People think about numerous things they did: the blankets are obvious, the colours of the blankets, what they stood for, their art collection. But the Olympic mittens hit home personally for me. I'm fortunate enough to have gone to many Olympics, and I was in Paris last summer and saw HBC Olympic mittens from the 2010 Vancouver Olympics and Paralympics.…You've got to understand that in the Olympic world, those mittens are in every country in the world because of 2010. What else can you think that did that?

Elamin: Teri, we've talked about other department stores, very few of them have managed to weave their way into the national identity the same way that the Bay has, and even continues to do so after being sold to an American buyer in 2006. We don't talk about Woodward's in the same way. How do you think the Bay managed to do that? 

Teri: The Bay is a brand that will always feel Canadian. I liken it to a Celine Dion or a Ryan Gosling or even Rush: no matter how big they get elsewhere in the world or what else they're carrying in their store, in this case, they'll always be ours. And Mark brings up those Olympic mitts from 2010 from the Vancouver Olympics. I was thinking if I was to dress like the quintessential Canadian, those mittens would be on that person. Maybe we'd have a Canadian tuxedo — denim on top, denim on bottom — a little Muskoka dinner jacket, a toque and the mittens. I mean, it's just so Canadian. 

So I think that most recently the Bay, in some weird way, was kind of embracing that Canadianness in a way that I wasn't seeing from other big department stores, big brands. They liked being Canadian — even though they weren't, and they have been since 2006. They embraced that Canadianness. Being Canadian was part of the Bay, just as the Bay is a part of Canada, including all of that problematic history [with Indigenous people]. 

You can listen to the full discussion from today's show on CBC Listen or on our podcast, Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud, available wherever you get your podcasts.

Panel produced by Jess Low.