The Canadian National Newspaper: Dominion Supermarkets and the destruction of Canada's business cultural heritage

Dominion Supermarkets and the destruction of Canada's business cultural heritage

Over the last number of years we've lost companies whose names were known to just about every Canadian. Remember these department stores, Woolworth's, Kresge's, Northway, Metropolitan, Morgan's and the once iconic Simpsons and Eatons? Or how about Aikenheads hardware, the ubiquitous United Cigar stores or the sweet smelling Scanlans and Women's Bakery and those little Downeyflake donut shops? Or appliance stores like Danforth Radio and Eddie Black? And just around almost every corner one could find a Carload, Superior, Stop and Shop or William Davies grocery store. All of these names are now just part of our history.

And speaking of grocery stores, relatively recently two more familiar names in that business were removed from the streetscape. Both Dominion and A&P titles have now been replaced by name of their new owner, Metro.

While A&P (originally The Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company) is the older of these two stores with a founding date south of the border of 1859, of more interest north of that same border is the demise of the Dominion store name, a title that identifies a company that came into being here in Canada on October 3, 1919.

The concept of what would become Dominion Stores was actually born a year earlier on a golf course in New Hampshire when a visiting Canadian commented to his host businessman Robert Jackson that Americans must really love tea there being such a proliferation of Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company stores in the cities and towns he had visited while on vacation. Surprised that there were no similar stores north of the border, Jackson decided to investigate and after a brief visit to Toronto returned home convinced that a chain of grocery stores operating the way the American A&P did (that is selling items such as sugar, flour, soap in bulk), would be successful.

He was able to convince his friend William Pentland, at the time manager of all the A&P stores throughout Connecticut, to join him in the venture. Together they opened two stores in Toronto, one at 174 Wallace Avenue and the other at 779 Queen St. E. Their enterprise, which was named in honour of the country in which Jackson and Pentland had set up shop (back then it was still called the Dominion of Canada) was a success from the start. In fact, it wasn't long before the two men purchased and renamed an additional 18 stores scattered across the city and operated by a competitor. And the name of that competitor? T.P. Loblaw.

That wasn't the only time the Dominion and Loblaws businesses were to cross paths. In September of 1929 officials of the two companies announced a deal was in the works that would see Dominion purchase the entire Loblaws chain of stores. Less than two months later the merger was called off citing the "present financial conditions" (also known as the Great Depression) as the prime reason.

The two companies continued on their separate ways here in Toronto with Dominion eventually being acquired by the Argus Corporation and then by A&P Canada. All Dominion and A&P stores are in the process of being folded into the Metro Inc. basket. In 1947 George Weston Ltd. began purchasing stock in Loblaws and by the early 1950s had gained controlling interest. Recently the founder of Loblaws, Theodore Pringle Loblaw, was recognized with an Ontario Heritage Trust plaque erected at his childhood home just outside Alliston, Ontario.

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