Hudson's Bay To The USA?

While news of a Canadian retail chain being sold to American investors is usually a matter of indifference to most people except hard-core Council of Canadians types, the possibility that Hudson's Bay Company might pass entirely out of Canadian ownership is a poignant one.

For HBC is not just another faceless retail chain, but one of the most significant actors in Canadian history for more than three centuries.

Without the Hudson's Bay Company, Canada as we know it today might never have existed, because control of the fur trade and the Canadian West and North would likely have ended up in French, and then American, hands instead.

During the recent CBC lockout, the cognoscenti kept telling us ad nauseum that Canada's national identity depends on CBC's existence.

Without HBC, there would have been no Canada, and thus no CBC.

I think the Hudson's Bay Company matters a little more to Canadian history and identity than some jumped-up left-wing broadcaster, don't you?

Read more about the proposed takeover at CTV .