Walmart Canada

History

Wal-Mart Canada was established in 1994 through the acquisition by Wal-Mart Stores Inc. of 122 Canadian leases of Woolco, a troubled subsidiary of Woolworth Canada. The same year, these Woolco stores were renovated and converted into the Walmart banner. Wal-Mart did not acquire 22 other Woolco stores that were either unionized or had downtown locations. Some former Woolco stores were sold and re-opened as Zellers stores.

All 16,000 former employees of the Woolco stores that Walmart acquired were retained, retrained, and given a five percent raise. Mario Pilozzi, a senior vice-president at Woolco when the deal was signed, eventually became CEO of Walmart Canada. Pilozzi, who retired in 2008, has proclaimed that he and "his management team took a limping chain and turned it into the Wal-Mart powerhouse that became a game-changer on the Canadian business scene. Retailers changed, Canadian manufactures faced demands and volumes they had not seen before, real estate transitioned from enclosed malls to big-box plazas". Reflecting on the 1994 deal in 2013, a Walmart Canada spokesman was quoted as saying "Even though Woolco had seen better days and was struggling, there was still an enormous amount of talent in that company. I think that is one of the reasons Walmart has succeeded in Canada, is because we started with a fantastic team that we re-motivated”.

Beginning in the fall of 2006, Walmart opened new Supercentres in Canadian cities. Walmart Canada also operated Sam's Club stores in Ontario from 2003 to 2009. On February 26, 2009, they announced that it would close all six of its Canadian Sam's Club locations. This was part of Walmart Canada's decision to shift focus towards Supercenter stores, but some industry observers suggested that the operation was struggling to compete with Costco and the non-membership The Real Canadian Superstore (known as Maxi & Cie in Quebec). Sam's Club also rebranded two unopened locations as new Walmart Supercentres.

From originally taking over much of the Woolco chain, Walmart Canada has expanded and opened new stores. It grew to 260 stores by 2005, making it Canada's second-largest retail chain.

In 2011, Walmart Canada acquired the leases of 39 Zellers stores from Target, originally one of the 189 leaseholds purchased from Hudson's Bay Company and slated for conversion to Target Canada stores. Walmart Canada managed to convert and reopen some of the former Zellers stores before Target Canada's launch. Unlike Walmart's 1994 move into Canada, Walmart Canada this time did not guarantee the jobs of the employees whose stores it was acquiring.

Walmart Canada launched the "Urban 90" format in 2012, a set of smaller Supercentres averaging 90,000 square feet.

In addition to the 11 Walmart Supercentres that opened across Canada in January 2015, Walmart Canada plans to complete another 29 Supercentres by the end of this year.

On May 8, 2015, following the bankruptcy of Target Canada, Walmart Canada announced its intent to acquire thirteen former Target locations, along with its distribution centre in Cornwall, Ontario, subject to court approval. These locations include an unopened location at the Bayshore Shopping Centre in Ottawa.

Supercentres in Canada

With the success of both Walmart in Canada and Walmart Supercenters in the United States, it was announced in late 2005 that the Supercentre concept would be arriving in Canada. On November 8, 2006, Canada's first three Supercentres opened in Hamilton, London, and Stouffville in Ontario. Alberta became the second province with Supercentres in September 2008. The first Supercentre in Vancouver, British Columbia opened in January 2009 in a former Costco/Price Club location, which moved to a new larger site nearby in Burnaby.

Walmart Supercentres range from 67,000 to 340,000 square feet (4,738.1 to 13,935.5 m2). Walmart Supercentres stock everything a Walmart Discount Store does, but also include a full-service supermarket, including meat and poultry, baked goods, delicatessen, frozen foods, dairy products, garden produce, and fresh seafood. Many Walmart Supercenters also feature a garden centre, pet shop, Axess Law office, pharmacy, Tire & Lube Express, optical centre, one-hour photo processing lab, portrait studio, a clinic and numerous Alcove shops, such as cellular phone stores, hair and nail salons, video rental stores (including Redbox rental kiosks), local bank branches, and fast food outlets, Walmart Canada Bank launched its application for banking licence in 2008 to compete with similar stores in Canada such as Loblaw. On July 24, 2009, Walmart Canada Bank was incorporated under the Bank Act in Canada.

Discount stores in Canada

Walmart Discount Stores are discount department stores varying in size from 51,000 to 150,000 square feet (4,738.1 to 13,935.5 m²), with the average store covering about 102,000 square feet (9,476.1 m²). They carry general merchandise and a selection of dried goods. Many of these stores also have a garden centre, pharmacy, Axess Law office, Tire & Lube Express, optical centre, one-hour photo processing lab, portrait studio, bank branch, cell phone store and fast food outlet, usually McDonald's (although stores that are in former Zellers locations typically do not contain a McDonald's). Walmart Discount Stores carry limited grocery items.

Most stores were converted into Supercentres in the late 2000s.

Sam's Club (2006-2009)

Walmart Canada operated Sam's Club warehouse clubs in Ontario from 2006 to 2009. On February 26, 2009, they announced that it would close all six of its Canadian Sam's Club locations. Sam's Club also rebranded two unopened locations as new Walmart Supercentres. This was part of Walmart Canada's decision to shift focus towards supercenter stores. Some industry observers suggested that the Canadian Sam's Club never enjoyed the success of its American counterpart due to competition with Costco and the non-membership The Real Canadian Superstore (known as Maxi & Cie in Quebec), as both chains that had a well-established history in Canada while Sam's Club was a late entrant.

Community involvement

Slogans

Controversy

Walmart Canada has been criticized for using low prices to drive out rivals and local businesses. Within ten years of Walmart's entry into Canada, well-established retailer chains such as Zellers, The Bay, and Sears Canada have struggled, with Kmart Canada being sold to Zellers while Eaton's (whom Walmart Canada overtook to become Canada's largest retailer) filed for bankruptcy. The continued difficulties of competing against Walmart Canada eventually led to HBC selling the leases of most Zellers stores to Target Canada, who also went out of business.

In June 2005, Vancouver city council voted 8-3 to reject Wal-Mart's proposal to build its first store in the city, a 143,000-square-foot store on Southeast Marine Drive. All eight COPE councillors against the project, while Mayor Larry Campbell and NPA councillors Sam Sullivan and Peter Ladner were in favor. Wal-Mart's proposed store was designed by local architect Peter Busby for sustainable development, with windmills generating power and underground wells heating and cooling the building which would consume 1/3 the energy of a normal store, and it was endorsed by city planners and staffers. Councillor Anne Roberts stated that her opposition was due to potential traffic and congestion that the store would bring to South Vancouver, although she later remarked "I'm not a fan of Wal-Mart, and I've always been concerned about their labour practices, about getting goods from sweatshops".

Labour

Like its American parent, Walmart Canada has been the subject of criticism that it has engaged in practices that discourage associates from exercising their right to join a union and negotiate a collective bargaining agreement.

Walmart Canada has been accused of undermining internet rights and freedom of speech, as a result of its June 2009 decision to seek an injunction against the Walmart Workers Canada campaign and its longstanding Walmart Workers Canada website in particular, a labour rights website sponsored by United Food and Commercial Workers Union Canada (UFCW Canada).

In Saskatchewan, Walmart fought unionization drivers at stores in Weyburn and North Battleford. The company's tactics eventually resulted in the Labour Relations Board imposing a fine and ordering them to hand over relevant documents, including the anti-union handbook for managers.

A Walmart store in Windsor, Ontario, was unionized in 1997, but workers dissolved the union three years later after it failed to sign contract with management.

The United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW), which had long been unsuccessful in unionizing Walmarts in the United States and much of Canada, was able to take advantage of Quebec's union-friendly laws to make some progress. These laws permit card-check organizing, which gives unions more power than secret ballot organizing used in the rest of Canada, and mandates arbitration if the two sides fail to reach a contract. The UFCW argued that union card-signing was more democratic than secret votes because "when there is a vote Wal-Mart uses intimidation tactics". In addition, Quebec's labour relations board had ordered Wal-Mart Canada to stop "intimidating and harassing" cashiers at a store in Ste. Foy, near Quebec City in the midst of an organizing drive. Walmart has responded, mostly by shutting down unionized stores or stalling labour contract negotiations. For instance they closed their Saguenay, Quebec store, in April 2005 after workers unionized and just days before contract settlement by binding arbitration, putting 190 employees out of work. Walmart argued that the store wasn’t profitable and the Supreme Court of Canada affirmed 6-3 on November 27, 2009 that the company had the legal right to close the store. Walmart also closed its automotive centre in Gatineau, Quebec, after employees unionized and an arbitrator imposed a 33 per cent wage increase.

There was the successful unionization by the UFCW of a Walmart store in Jonquière, Quebec in August 2004, as told in the documentary Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price. The initial card-check organizing efforts fell 1 vote short, and in April 2004 a secret ballot to join the union was defeated 53% to 47%. However, when a group of managers gathered just outside the front door to celebrate for the TV cameras and taunt union supporters as they left the store, this spectacle offended many of the workers that originally voted against the union and caused them to switch sides, leading to a second and successful card-check that unionized the store in August 2004. However, nine days of negotiation between the UFCW and Wal-Mart were fruitless, with the union accusing the company of not negotiating in good faith while Walmart argued that the union wanted the store to hire an additional 30 workers. Walmart closed the store five months later because the company did not approve of the new "business plan" a union would require, and this move was permitted by Quebec law as long as the closure was permanent.

This labour dispute between Walmart and the UFCW made headlines worldwide,; three of the other 46 Walmarts in the province of Quebec were temporarily closed by bomb threats, while a TV broadcaster likened Wal-Mart to Nazi Germany, and Saguenay mayor Jean Tremblay denounced the company as a "freebooting scofflaw". Walmart CEO H. Lee Scott Jr. argued that the Jonquière store was struggling, while polls in Canada showed that 9 of 10 Canadians believed that the store closure was mainly due to the unionization. A local newspaper columnist accused the UFCW leaders in Washington of using the Jonquière store workers (in a city with chronically high unemployment, and whose stores had been wiped out by the opening of the Place du Royaume shopping mall in Chicoutimi) as "cannon fodder" to provoke a fight in order to incite public opinion against the Walmart, knowing that Walmart headquarters would not tolerate a unionized store. In September 2005, the Québec Labour Board ruled that the closing of a Walmart store amounted to a reprisal against unionized workers and has ordered additional hearings on possible compensation for the employees, though it offered no details. Union organizers suggested that Walmart was making an example of the Jonquière store to pressure workers at other locations not to unionize.

At the Saint-Hyacinthe Walmart, the 200 employees had organized successfully in January 2005 but contract negotiations stalled and an arbitrator was called in, finally reaching a two-year deal on April 9, 2009. However the Saint-Hyacinthe contract was seen largely as a Pyrrhic victory for the UFCW, as the arbitrator portrayed "Wal-Mart as at least as good an employer-even a superior employer- compared with other retailers", noting that Walmart workers were paid more than their counterparts at Zellers. The union's calls for wage and benefit increases were all rejected, particularly their demand for an automatic-progression annual wage scales, as that would have conflicted with the company-wide annual performance evaluation, a key component of Walmart's business model. The arbitrator awarded existing workers (but not new hires) a small wage gain of 30¢ an hour to prevent them from being "impoverished" by dues paid to a union that failed to justify wages increases to the arbitrator. In 2011, the Saint-Hyacinthe Walmart employees voted (147 out of 250) to decertify United Food and Commercial Workers as their representative union; it has been suggested that employees were disappointed in their union whose 2009 contract was tilted strongly in favor of their employer.

Wal-Mart employees in Gatineau, Quebec joined the United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW) in 2008. This was followed by two years of stalled negotiations before an arbitrator imposed a collective agreement. In November 2011, after one year with their first collective agreement, the 150 Wal-Mart employees voted to decertify.

On August 15, 2013, the Supreme Court of Canada cleared the way for Walmart employees in Weyburn, Saskatchewan who voted 51-5 to decertify United Food and Commercial Workers as their representative union. This left no unionized Wal-Mart stores in the whole of Canada.

Security

On July 14, 2015 Walmart Canada disabled their online photo site, blaming a third party vendor, believed to be PNI Digital Media. Walmart's shutdown was followed shortly after by other companies suspending their photo site whilst an investigation took place. In common with other potential victims there was no confirmation or denial about whether hackers had stolen customer photographs as well as data and payment information. As of March 2016, the website does not offer online purchases, instead instructing customers to peruse photo services in-store. There is no ETA on when or if online services will return.