Lord & Taylor now Lord and Master of HBC

I'm more than a little pissed off here. I was ready to jump into a Canadianist rant that would have made Mel Hurtig and his poorly published diatribes against American investment in Canada proud. But then I read more closely into the National Post article (I know, but of all the papers it's not surprising they covered it on the front page), and discovered that it's actually worse, or not as worse as I had originally suspected. I cannot decide which.

Canada didn't lose HBC, the oldest and arguably most prestigious commercial institution in the country, to an American equity firm on Thursday. It was gone as early as 2006 when it was bought by a South Carolinian business tycoon - though not Stephen Colbert, though that might have been interesting - for a (paltry) $1.1 billion. Here I was ready to lament the loss of another venerable Canadian institution when I realized that it was already long gone...

...And that not much changed. Am I sad to learn that HBC has changed hands from one American business interest to another? Of course. Did it change my everyday life significantly, or the lives of other Canadians? Probably not. This is not GM announcing that it's cutting 20% of all well-paying, salaried positions across North America. That will cut some families to the quick, and everything we can should be done to soften that blow. But this? Other than the opening of 10 to 15 Lord & Taylor stores in Canada and the intention to make HBC more competitive with Holt Renfrew and less competitive with Sears Canada, I am not sure what the problem is. I find HBC routinely too expensive for my blood as it stands - if they choose to go more up-scale and compete with Holt, all the more power to them! Yuppies with cash are a lucrative market, and HBC may even be able to shed the sense that shopping there was only cool for your mom in the 1960's, if not your Grandmother in the 40's. Or if you wanted Olympic gitch.

So this Canadian nationalist will join the national lament over HBC - if there was one, which I doubt there was - to a degree. Like all good Canadians I've got my Points Blanket (a throwback to the original 100% wool blankets first traded between French voyageurs and Aboriginals) and at least one hoodie with something related to Team Canada. And while it would be nice if HBC was in Canadian hands, they're not closing them down; they're not changing the name; and they're not taking the company in a direction that it was not already travelling in, so I for one am not incredibly concerned. And you can still get your Olympic gitch there, so everyone can let out that sigh of relief they've been holding in.

And besides - when we lost the incredible Railroad Hotels that dot the major cities and geographical wonders of this country (think Quebec City, think Lake Louise, think Ottawa) to Fairmont Hotels nobody blinked. And when Fairmont was bought by the Saudi Royal Family, this seemed only natural. And more recently the purchase of the Hockey Night in Canada themesong by CTV should have convinced Canadians that, in all honesty, nothing is untouchable these days, and anything can be bought.

It does beg a few questions, though. If not these, then what institutions and buildings are sacred to Canadians? And where will we draw the line?